Let’s Go Rays! Let’s Go Rays! Let’s Go to the morsels…

–The Rays are 35-20, just swept the Sox and sent Ozzie Guillen into one of his foaming at the mouth, everyone is horse poop tirades. More on that later. But how can you not want the Rays to win the division? To beat the Yanks. To Beat the Red Sox. To beat futility. To shut up all the fans who complain about the impropriety of dollars spent by MLB teams. To see Cliff Floyd get a ring. OK, that last one not so much. But riddle me this–do you know anyone that isn’t pulling for these guys?

– Down goes Prior. Again. The most interesting thing about Prior’s most recent injury is that he could have chose to continue rehabbing it but opted for surgery. I find that interesting.

“Thirteen months removed from arthroscopic surgery on the same right shoulder, Prior opted to have the problem taken care of this week, even if it meant having season-ending surgery to repair the tear in the anterior part of the shoulder capsule.

“After speaking with the doctors, Mark wanted to definitively fix it and begin the rehab process,” said Prior’s agent, John Boggs. “I think that’s the best way to go about it.”

– So Ozzie throws a bit of a fit and I think it was a well-deserved–and possibly orchestrated–semi-tirade. This team has too many veteran hitters barely hitting .200. They are 26th in BA, 19th in OBP, 15th in SLG and 21st in runs scored. Should that be the case with a team like they have? Take away the unbelievable start by Quentin and the great job by youngsters Danks and Floyd and this team is sitting next to the Tigers in the standings.

Ozzie knows that. And that’s why he is mad. He should be. And he’s trying to stir the pot and get some life in these mopes. Of course, that’s what Swisher and Cabrera were supposed to do, and that’s not exactly working out so well, at least not yet. I think that is part of the reason in response to Ozzie’s thoughts Kenny Williams had this to say: “It’s just not a good idea to throw your boss under the bus, especially when that boss has had your back as much as I have had his,” Williams wrote. “I expect this team, if the leadership remains positive and the players stick together and continue to play hard, it will be a fun summer.” We’ll see.

And finally, The Hardball Times has an excellent review of Peter Schilling’s novel “The End of Baseball”. It’s on the Zoner’s ‘to read’ stack.