Chris Glover swoops in and grabs a COW honor with his Jessie Spano impression.  After Travis broke the news of Carlos Pena’s return, Chris wrote: Travis, this comment just got me fired up for baseball again. With the mild distraction of football about to end I was wondering how I would pass the time here  [ Read More ]

By Chris Glover *Is there any limit to the number of bad puns Moore’s name allows us to use? (The asterik is Chris’s.  I accept his question as a challenge for 2012. -Mark) Using a graphic that seems very much at home here at The Ray Area, Steve Slowinksi suggests that Matt Moore just got  [ Read More ]

One of the really cool things about last night is the way everyone seems to have a cool story about where they were or what they were doing when it all went down.  It’s almost like the baseball equivalent of the JFK Assassination (does that make Robert Andino Lee Harvey Oswlad, Evan Longoria Jack Ruby,  [ Read More ]

[Chris, our Canada-based correspondent, has taken his last opportunity to see the Rays in person this week on their final visit to the north land.] By Chris Glover Jose Molina appears to be what we would generally describe as intelligent. He’s made a living as a good defensive catcher who understands how to call a  [ Read More ]

If you’re gonna be a homer, you may as well be open about it. The Rays could be down by four heading into the bottom of the 9th and it would only take a quick Matt Joyce single to get many of us calculating how the team can win the team. Granted that such optimism  [ Read More ]

By Chris Glover All-Star Gazing It seems obligatory for any sports site or blog to post an article criticising the current year All-Star rosters, citing Scott Rolen’s lack of offense, Josh Hamilton’s lack of playing time or Derek Jeter’s lack of a pulse in the field. We are not going to go there however. Instead,  [ Read More ]

By Chris Glover The number of different ways to enjoy a game of baseball seems to increase by the day as social media adds a layer of interactivity and new live-data allows fans to better understand the story playing out on the field. One of my favourite things to follow during a game are FanGraphs’  [ Read More ]

By Chris Glover * I am running with the notion here that everyone is cool with using advanced metrics to measure defensive ability. I realise this is a stretch but I didn’t want to caveat every other sentence with a disclaimer about small sample sizes and the reliability of data. That was the nerdiest sentence  [ Read More ]

By Chris Glover Memorial Day is often regarded as the unofficial start of summer and a time when we can first glance at the standings and take player hot streaks seriously. Given that summer starts in Canada when the first 17 feet of snow melts in mid-August, I can’t comment too much on the first  [ Read More ]

By Chris Glover Perhaps it’s not a great idea to title a column the same as one of the most beloved pieces of American literature ofthe 20th century [I totally had to Google 'On The Road.' I am embarrassed that Chris learned more about American literature in the UK than I learned, you know, in  [ Read More ]