Whiners with excuses

[raysnbran]

The whining started as soon as they got back from the All Star break, complaining "how are they ever going to replace Huff's bat in the lineup?". They seemed to replace it during the 1st half of the season when he was A) injured and B) in his annual slow start.

They they go to Anaheim and get swept and get caught up in the woe is me syndrome, blaming the umps for the bad calls that continually go against the Rays. It does happen to us more than most, but when you've been a bad team since Day 1, you need to prove yourself twice as much.

Now it continues in Minnesota. Lugo complaining in the locker room, Crawford as well.

Man up Devil Rays, and take ownership of your problems, and stop blaming everyone but yourselves. Only you can stop the bleeding on this team, so stop waiting for help from upstairs. They are not thinking of the 2006 team, but 2008 and beyond. So quitcher bitchin and start playing some baseball!

[TonyStarks]

This franchise needs to be sold to an ownership group who wants to win and then moved to a better market.

Dallas, South Jersey, Vegas, Puerto Rico....

[Eddiey]

Man up Devil Rays, and take ownership of your problems, and stop blaming everyone but yourselves. Only you can stop the bleeding on this team, so stop waiting for help from upstairs. They are not thinking of the 2006 team, but 2008 and beyond. So quitcher bitchin and start playing some baseball!

Thats easy to say when you aren't the one getting your brains beat in day after day. The players don't want to wait 2 years, they want some help now. I can't blame them for that. Winning is why they play the game. What may be frustrating them more and more is they see help in the minors. Young and Upton and possibly a few others. So, for the sake of team morale, giving the young guys currently on the roster a bit of help might be a good idea for management to consider. I know this. If I had a bunch of guys who didn't care about winning I'd be sending them out the door. These guys want to win and management should appreciate that.

[raysnbran]

I'm not blaming the players for complaining about the losing, it's the excuse making that I can do without. When I opened my paper last Thursday, and saw how they were already worried about how they would replace Huff in the lineup. something inside me said "oh-oh". They are already warming up the alibi machine for the second half, and so far they are 0 for the second half. You won't get the respect of the umps until you earn it on the field. Complaining in the media won't make the umps give you the benefit of the doubt, they will make it harder on you for questioning their integrity.

The new DRO did not come in and say they would increase payroll $50 mil in one year. They are basically having to start over from scratch and retool everything, from the minors to the clubhouse to the stadium to the major league club. They have promised to build depth in the farm system now, so that it pays off in 2 years, and they have done that. The players now want to win, of course, and don't care what 2008 will bring, because more than half of them probably won't be here.

I look at a team like the Marlins. Everyone thought they would break the '62 Mets record for losing, and look how well they're playing with mostly kids. They hustle and scrap, and more than anything else, have the pitching to be able to compete most nights. They could have packed it in, even Girardi didn't know they were going to dismantle the team before he got hired. But he has convinced those guys that they can win. I don't think Maddon has convinced our players that they can do the same.

Eddiey, they should bring up the Upton's and the Young's and others. You can't tell me that this team is better having Branyon in RF over Young, or Tomas Perez in the IF over Upton. Why Branyon is still on the team is beyond me, every team knows he either strikes out of hits a HR, with many more K's than HRs. I think they will be here by the end of the more, or I sure hope so.