Rays set second-half rotation

Posted Jul 11, 2009 by Marc Lancaster

Updated Jul 11, 2009 at 03:42 PM

The Rays have set up their starting rotation for the start of the second half next Friday, when James Shields will get the ball at Kansas City.

Tampa Bay’s Opening Day starter, who will be on the mound tomorrow in the first half finale, will be followed by Scott Kazmir, Matt Garza, David Price and Jeff Niemann. So essentially it’s the same alignment the Rays used to open the season, with Price in Andy Sonnanstine’s spot.

The Rays are counting on lengthy starts from Garza tonight and Shields tomorrow, of course, but if that isn’t the case, it’ll pretty much be all hands on deck tomorrow, pitching-wise.

On the rehab front, it sounds like it’ll be a pretty full house in Port Charlotte next week, with Shawn Riggans set to begin a rehab assignment with the Stone Crabs and Brian Shouse likely to do the same. Fernando Perez and Akinori Iwamura also will be there, as the Rays decided to have Aki rehab in the Port rather than join them in Kansas City as they had earlier indicated might be the case.

As for the matter at hand, the Rays will gun for their fifth consecutive win tonight against the A’s on ‘90s night at the Trop. Both teams will be wearing throwback uniforms, circa 1999 or so, and Rolando Arrojo and Roberto Hernandez are already in the house. Those two, Dave Martinez and Fred McGriff are signing autographs pregame.

The lineups:

A’s
Kennedy 3B
Cabrera SS
Hairson CF
Holliday LF
Cust DH
Suzuki C
Giambi 1B
Sweeney RF
Ellis 2B
Braden P

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