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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Rays at Indians: Lineups and more

Posted Jul 25, 2010 by Tribune Sports

Updated Jul 25, 2010 at 01:18 PM

Not surprisingly, the Key West Cafe has gone out of business here. Downtown Cleveland is 1,406 miles from Duval Street and about three ounces of mercury shy of seeing tropical temperatures in January. Lebron James wasn’t fooled. Anyway, on to baseball.

By TONY FABRIZIO

CLEVELAND - Today’s series finale against the Indians is an important game for the Rays, because it means the difference between a winning and losing road trip.

The Rays lost two out of three at New York, won two out of three at Baltimore and stand 1-1 at Cleveland after breaking their five-year losing Progressive Field losing streak with a 6-3 victory Saturday night. A win today would give the Rays a 5-4 trip heading into a homestand against three teams that are a combined 37 games over .500.

Manager Joe Maddon has stacked his lineup with lefties against ex-Red Sox pitcher Justin Masterson, who has a mediocre record of 3-8 and 5.25 ERA. Masterson did not get a decision in a July 11 start at Tropicana Field in which he gave up four earned runs in five innings and Tampa Bay won 6-5 in 10 innings.

B.J. Upton is out of the lineup. Ben Zobrist starts in center, Matt Joyce in right and Willy Aybar is the DH. Evan Longoria and Jason Bartlett are the only righthanded hitters in the lineup (Zobrist and Aybar are switch-hitters).

“Yeah, I’m just going with all the lefties versus Masterson,” Maddon said. “He’s really hard on righties, and if I had two more lefties to put out there, I would, too. That’s just the way Masterson is. And you’re always looking for the right day to give somebody (Upton) the day off, and I just thought today was the right day.”

Upton is available off the bench, Maddon said.

Rookie Wade Davis (7-9, 4.41 ERA) takes a two-game winning steak into his start today. The Rays have won all three of his starts in July.

Here is Tampa Bay’s lineup:

Ben Zobrist, CF
Carl Crawford, LF
Evan Longoria, 3B
Carlos Pena, 1B
Matt Joyce, LF
Willy Aybar, DH
John Jaso, C
Reid Brignac, 2B
Jason Bartlet, SS
—
Wade Davis, RHP