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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 hitters to get more ABs in spring games

Posted Feb 27, 2010 by Roger Mooney

Updated Feb 27, 2010 at 05:05 PM

Expect to see a whole lot more hitting from the Rays this March. Or, at least more at-bats.

Rays manager Joe Maddon said he will increase the amount of at-bats for Carlos Peña, Carl Crawford, Jason Bartlett, Evan Longoria, etc, by at least 10 and as many as 20.

This is part of Maddon’s effort to get the team off to a good start in the regular season.

“It is,” Maddon said, “and (hitting coach Derek Shelton has) done a nice job of researching their best years and how many ABs they had in spring training during those years, and it’s reflective of a good number of at-bats for some of these guys. Maybe a little bit more than they’ve had recently.”

Maddon generally schedules the hitters to receive 50 to 60 at-bats each spring.

“It seems like the magic number is between 60 and 70 if there is a range, and then maybe one or two guys 70-plus,” Maddon said. “If we can do that we’d like to do that.”