Longoria out again, Bartlett the DH

3B Evan Longoria is out of the Rays lineup again tonight, the result of being hit by a pitch Thursday on the back of his right wrist. Longoria said he likely won't be back until Tuesday. SS Jason Bartlett's bruised right index finger is still not healed enough for him to play the field, but he is in the lineup tonight as the DH.

Bartlett said he and team trainers decided to rest the finger and not throw for a day or two, and he is now aiming to return to the field Tuesday in Oakland. That likely further delays the return of Rocco Baldelli.

The overall lineup is rather interesting as the Rays seek their franchise tying 70th win against Seattle lefty Ryan Rowland-Smith, with Bartlett hitting fifth and Ben Zobrist sixth. Willy Aybar is again at third base.

No sign yet of new reliever Chad Bradford, though he will wear No. 53. And OF Eric Hinske was sporting a nearly shaved head, saying, "I go bald every year,'' and that, "I (stink) right now so I might as well try to change it up.''

The lineup:
Rays
Iwamura, 2b
Upton, cf
Crawford, lf
Pena, 1b
Bartlett, dh
Zobrist, ss
Aybar, 3b
Navarro, c
Gross, rf
Garza, p

(Pictured - Jason Bartlett injures his finger on an attempted bunt against the Tigers. Times photo - James Borchuck. Click to enlarge.)

Comments

[mike]

Time for BJ to step it up.

[dick]

It is starting to look like the amount of innings that are piling up for the bullpen is starting to show. Howell has not looked very good lately and Wheeler the same. wheeler has been pretty solid all year but the last two or three games he has been hit pretty good and Howell is struggling to get the ball over the plate. Too many innings/appearances---hope Bradford can take some of the load off these guys. It's a shame if we give this one away after fighting back when it looked VERY bleak.

[Upton]

I'm lazy - wanna fight about it?

[justin]

Nice comeback, especially with two outs BUT--if you heard what I heard, it sounded to me like Upton may be up to old tricks and was dogging it coming in to score and because he was dogging it on Crawford's hit, he wouldn't have scored if Crawford was out at 2nd. They didn't show the replay to see how bad it was but the announcers certainly mentioned it at length. Perhaps Upton still hasn't got the message--nice double he hit though!

[dick]

Magrane gives me a migrane. "Carlos looks much better up there" "He looks more comfortable, his swing is level", after he fouls one off with the bases loaded, Magrane says "he's getting close"..PLEASE PLEASE refrain from the optimism when Carlos is facing a lefthander with a decent breaking ball--he can't hit them. Also, nice four innings Garza. Lucky we're not down by 6 or 7 runs--what is it, 8 or 9 hits in 4 innings against the powerhouse that is Seattle..Is this the "good Matt or the bad Matt?"...

[David]

This should be interesting because of the lack of offense again i was very suprised by 5 runs last night. Bartlett hit great at DH against the Indians on Wednesday hopefully he wlll do that again tonite. And Lets pray for another great outing by Matt Garza!

[Glenn Whipp]

Thanks for the Longoria update.