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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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Wait and see on Percival

Posted Jul 1, 2008 by Marc Lancaster

Updated Jun 30, 2008 at 11:31 PM

The exchange between Troy Percival and Joe Maddon in the ninth inning tonight certainly looked ugly—it wasn’t difficult for even the most inexperienced of lip-readers to pick out the profanity—but the closer said after the game, a beer in his hand, that he was just blowing off steam.

“It had nothing to do with Joe. I knew Joe was doing the right thing,” said Percival. “At the time I was just frustrated about the ring shot, I was frustrated that my leg just popped again for the 12th time and I just needed to yell at somebody and he was there.

“I hate coming off the mound in the middle of the inning. It’s just not something I’ve ever done, I don’t like doing it and it’s embarrassing, but Joe did the right thing. Fortunately, Joe knows me better than any coach can possibly know me and he saw it in my eyes that there wasn’t any way.”

So, just to clarify, Percival wasn’t arguing to stay in the game?

“He knew it when he saw the first [warm-up] pitch, he said, ‘Percy, that’s not going to work,’ and I said, ‘Let me try one more,’” Percival said. “So I tried to hide it and fake it a little bit on the next one and he goes, ‘Percy, it’s not going to work.’

“He did the right thing. I apologized to him immediately. I know better than to even act like that, but my frustration got the better of me right there.”

The question now, obviously, is what happens next. A second trip to the disabled list, with a little extra time to rest built in around the All-Star break, might not be a bad idea. Percival admitted he is having this problem with his leg just about every time he goes out there but he has learned to deal with it.

Asked about a potential DL stint, this was his response:

“It’s not something that I want to think about until tomorrow, to be honest with you. There’s been nights when I’ve gotten through my inning no problem and come in here and said there’s no way I’m going to be able to go tomorrow and then I come back the next day and it’s not as bad. So I don’t want to jump the gun on any of that, because it might be OK.”

We’ll see what happens, but I’d say the DL is a definite possibility. The Rays are going to need this guy down the stretch, and they can buy him a couple of extra days with the break coming. If they put him on tomorrow and he returned after the break, he’d miss 12 games.

Let some combination of Wheeler and Balfour close and the Rays might be able to get by, especially with eight of their remaining games before the break coming against Kansas City and Cleveland teams that entered tonight tied for the second-worst record in the AL.