Rays open final road trip

Posted Sep 25, 2009 by Marc Lancaster

Updated Sep 25, 2009 at 04:53 PM

ARLINGTON—Good afternoon from the shadow of Cowboys Stadium, where here in the humble baseball park down the street the Rays (whose season is finished) and the Rangers (whose isn’t quite, but might as well be) will ply their trade this weekend.

The Rays lug a 31-47 road record into their final three games away from the dear old Trop, so the best they can do is finish 13 games under .500 on the road. Not real stellar. Then again, the Tigers are 10 under .500 away from Comerica Park and they could very well end up in the playoffs.

Anyway, nothing of note in the Rays’ Friday night lineup against rookie lefty Derek Holland. They’ll try to support James Shields as he attempts to even his record at 11-11 with one start remaining. The Rangers welcome back a familiar face, Josh Hamilton, who will DH tonight in his first action since Sept. 2—he missed 19 games with a pinched nerve in his back.

The starting nines:

Rays
Bartlett SS
Crawford LF
Longoria 3B
Zobrist 2B
Burrell DH
Aybar 1B
Kapler RF
Navarro C
Upton CF
Shields P

Rangers
Borbon LF
Andrus SS
Hamilton DH
Byrd CF
Blalock 1B
Kinsler 2B
Murphy RF
Rodriguez C
Davis 3B
Holland P