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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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Too much O’s and Sox and Yanks and Jays

Posted Mar 3, 2010 by Roger Mooney

Updated Mar 3, 2010 at 12:55 PM

By ROGER MOONEY

SARASOTA - The Rays open the Grapefruit League season four straight games against the AL East - the Olrioles today and tomorrow, the Yankees on Friday and the Red Sox on Saturday.

The Rays get their first look at the Blue Jays on March 11.

On all, the Rays will play AL East teams 16 times in March. Add that to the 18 times each they play division foes during the regular season and, well, that’s too much for manager Joe Maddon.

“I don’t like it all,” Maddon said before today’s Grapefruit League opener at Ed Smith Stadium. “I’m not going to hide that. I think the way we are situated and everybody (in the division) is here, by the end of this baseball season we’re going to play them nearly 100 times (actually 88) and then hopefully some more in the playoffs. It gets to be a 100 possible games against your own division. Again, I love the fact of being in this division, I just don’t like the fact of playing your opposition that often. It’s just the familiarity thing. Who knows what that can breed? It’s just playing the other side too often. I don’t like that.”

All these division games is due to the fact the Orioles moved to Sarasota this spring, replacing the Reds at Ed Smith Stadium, meaning every team in the AL East trains on the Gulf Coast.

Having the O’s in Sarasota helps with travel, but playing the Orioles four times this month and six times in the first nine games of the season is a little too much.

“There’s certain things you’d rather not show,” Maddon said. “The different things we try to do, you have so many limited opportunities that present itself in a spring training game, and I’m not going to not do something because it’s against an American League East team. Preferably, you’d like to be able try things against a National League team if you want to do anything. Not like you’re going crazy trying a bunch of stuff, but there are items that you’d rather keep in your back pocket. But the way the schedule sets up, it’s virtually impossible. You’re going to have to do that.”

Of course, it works both ways. The Rays have a chance to see the other teams, too.

And with the way information moves these days, there are really no secrets.

“It’s hard to hide anything anymore, that’s why execution is so important,” Maddons aid. “It’s like the old Green Bay sweep, man. You knew it was coming but you couldn’t stop it. I want us to be able to do things well enough execution-wise that regardless if they know we’re doing it or not, we can still do it. I think that’s what you have to be in baseball. There’s a glut of information, and it depends on each group how much they want to study and what’s germane to that group and how they want to utilize it. For me, it comes down to taking that and pitcher’s executing their pitches, hitters working good at-bats, the stuff you’re supposed to do, and there is no big secret about that. How we go about our business is execution of fundamentals, and I really believe our guys are buying into it.”