Ready to head for home

Posted Jun 11, 2008 by Marc Lancaster

Updated Jun 11, 2008 at 01:54 PM

ANAHEIM—When the end of a road trip this long is within sight, you usually get the sense in the clubhouse that everyone is just ready to get home. I don’t necessarily sense that today, maybe because of the high number of Californians on the Rays’ roster (or maybe because no one has had to buy gas out here yet), but from a baseball perspective there’s no doubt they’re looking forward to getting back to the friendly confines.

A win today in what should be a fantastic matchup of starting pitchers would give the Rays a 4-5 trip, which somehow would seem quite a bit better than 3-6. The lineup is the same as yesterday’s as Jonny Gomes serves the final day of his suspension. Carl Crawford’s four-game ban begins Friday, and James Shields is officially on the shelf starting today.

Shields had hoped to get a day knocked off his six-game suspension but was unsuccessful on that front. His next start will come a week from tomorrow, at home in the final game of the Cubs series. The two off days coming up will keep the Rays’ rotation from being tossed into too much chaos, and they’ll only need a spot starter once in this run of suspensions. That will be June 21 against the Astros when Edwin Jackson is on the shelf, and the possibilities to start that day include Jason Hammel and Jeff Niemann.

Back to today, here are the respective lineups:

Rays
Iwamura 2B
Crawford LF
Upton CF
Hinske DH
Longoria 3B
Aybar 1B
Navarro C
Gross RF
Bartlett SS
Kamir P

Angels
Willits LF
Izturis SS
Kendrick 2B
Guerrero DH
Hunter CF
Matthews RF
Kotchman 1B
Napoli C
Qunlan 3B
Lackey P