Arizona @ Tampa Bay preview
Tropicana Field
Last Meeting ( Jun 20, 2007 ) Tampa Bay 4, Arizona 7
The Tampa Bay Rays snapped a three-game losing streak on Thursday. The victory, however, may have come at a cost.
Rays outfielder Carl Crawford left the game after suffering a shoulder injury in the second inning. Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said he didn’t think it was a major injury but Crawford is not expected to be in the lineup as the Rays begin a three-game series with the Arizona Diamondbacks at Tropicana Field on Friday night.
Crawford is batting .306 with 26 stolen bases and was believed to have suffered the injury making a throw in Wednesday’s game.
The way the Diamondbacks have been playing, the Rays may not need to rush Crawford back into action. Arizona has lost 14 of its last 15 road games and seven of nine overall.
Arizona defeated the New York Yankees in the first game of its three-game series this week but then blew leads in back-to-back games as the Yankees won the series.
The Diamondbacks will start Edwin Jackson, who is no stranger to their American League foes. Jackson spent three seasons in Tampa Bay before being traded to Detroit.
Jackson is 4-6 on the season after the Tigers sent him to Arizona in a deal that sent Max Scherzer and others to the Tigers. While Scherzer has begun to show signs of promise for Detroit, Jackson has struggled with the Diamondbacks, who have the second-worst record in the National League.
While Arizona is a miserable team on the road at 10-27, Jackson has pitched well away from home. He is 2-1 with a 1.71 ERA in his last four road starts.
While things have deteriorated for the Diamondbacks, their ace, Brandon Webb, continues to make progress from shoulder surgery that has sidelined him for the entire season. Webb threw 65 pitches off the mound Thursday and expects to throw again over the weekend at Tampa Bay.
There is still no timetable for his return nor was there any immediate decision on the future of Dontrelle Willis, who was removed from Wednesday’s game against the Yankees after issuing seven walks in just 2 1/3 innings.
And even those numbers are skewed in Willis’ favor. The Yankees ran into two outs on the bases in the first inning or Willis might not have survived that frame. Willis threw 67 pitches in the game and only 27 of them were strikes.
The Rays sent catcher Dioner Navarro to the minors on Thursday. Navarro was an All-Star in 2008 but has struggled at the plate all season and he became expendable with the Rays carrying three catchers.
John Jaso has done a great deal of the work behind the plate as of late and Kelly Shoppach is finally healthy.
Tampa Bay recalled Matt Joyce from Triple-A Durham to help alleviate the lack of depth in the outfield.