The Rays announced that outfielder Josh Lowe has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a right oblique strain, with a retroactive placement date of May 23. In the corresponding move, right-hander Chris Devenski has been activated from the 15-day IL after missing almost exactly a month due to tendinitis in his right knee.
Lowe made an early exit from Wednesday’s game because of what was described at the time as a right side strain, though a follow-up MRI didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, it isn’t surprising that the Rays will be cautious and send Lowe to the IL given that he already missed over a month of the season with another oblique strain. Between that first oblique strain and hip inflammation, Lowe missed most of Spring Training and didn’t make his season debut until May 6.
In between his two trips to the IL, Lowe hit .240/.296/.440 with two homers over 54 plate appearances. This translated to a respectable 108 wRC+, though it was still well below the 131 wRC+ Lowe delivered while hitting .292/.335/.500 with 20 homers and 32 stolen bases over 501 PA in 2023. Tampa Bay was hoping Lowe would again be a big contributor to the lineup, and his absence for much of the season has been a factor in the Rays’ overall underwhelming offensive performance.
Lowe had been receiving regular center-field duty against right-handed pitching, but the combination of Jose Siri and Jonny DeLuca (both right-handed batters) should again handle the bulk of center field work while Lowe is away. Randy Arozarena made a few appearances in center field earlier this week and might again factor into the mix depending on how the Rays shuffle their outfield at-bats. Harold Ramirez’s playing time diminished when Lowe and Jonathan Aranda returned from the IL, but with Lowe again sidelined, Ramirez might again get some work on the grass if Arozarena is shifted into center field on at least a part-time basis.
Devenski has allowed five homers in only 14 innings pitched this season, resulting in a 7.71 ERA for the veteran reliever. Keeping the ball in the park has long been a challenge for Devenski throughout his career, though he showed some improvement in this regard after he first signed with the Rays last August, while posting a 2.08 ERA in nine appearances and 8 2/3 innings with the team. This was enough for Tampa to re-sign Devenski to a one-year, $1.1MM free agent deal this past winter, but the club hasn’t yet gotten much return on even that modest contract.
Might as well let Lowe rest and get healed up for 2025. Ain’t going to the playoffs this year.
Richie Palacios is hitting better than Lowe at the moment anyways.
Hopefully he doesn’t hang a toenail, or the team may be “cautious” with him and send him home for the year. Be careful, Richie!
Fander Wranco.
Apparently you’re trying to take the title from him with your annoying ALL-CAPS posts.
You could just mute them.
Not even close. He was over $10mil a year and he couldn’t hit. The biggest mistake was trading for an aging DH Nelson Cruz giving up a #2 or 3 in Joe Ryan.
Rays typically don’t make the go for it move like Cruz and acquire players like Ryan instead. Definitely a miss.
The Rays are so d*mn cautious w these players, no wonder the team caps out every year and cannot reach a championship series. Lowe, Baz, Junior…yes, let’s be careful with the young players! Tightness in his side? Oh my! (Yes, I know he had an oblique issue.) Rays FO is like helicopter parents. Maybe they can put bubblewrap on the starters to make sure they don’t get boo-boos???
Yes, this Rays fan is getting exhausted with the passivity of this franchise and how they run things. The FO is happy with simply earning a wild card, and even that won’t happen this year. SMDH.
The answer with the pitchers is not babying them less, but I think has all to do with the pitching coach and organizational philosophy. $ternberg doesn’t want to spend on top name free agents or extend any rookies, so the front office has to ‘moneyball’ it and get players who are discarded or not valued enough and try to make something out of them. Don’t get me wrong, they do a good enough job to make the playoffs consistently, but with the pitchers, they get these guys who are at the top of the leaderboards in Spin Rate. Snyder feeds into the whole SABRmetrics garbage and gets them to try to create more spin, and while they may have a 16-win year, before you know it, they screw up their shoulder and are out for a year and a half. Doesn’t work well when the season is 162 games long. The only reason they baby pitchers like Baz is that Snyder and the front office damaged them in the first place. In ‘08 when they made it to the World Series, they didn’t have pitchers who were at the top of the Spin Rate charts. They just had guys who threw fast, had a change of pace, and could locate the ball. Price, Shields, Garza, and Kazmir didn’t need Tommy John halfway through ‘08, they made it through the season and gave them a solid rotation in the World Series that should have beat Philly. Enough with the Spin Rate love and just get some guys who locate the ball.
I don’t know the reason why guys like Josh Lowe, Brandon Lowe, Kiermaier in the past, and others are consistently injured, but I wish they could get to the root of the problem so they wouldn’t have to baby them.
You and me both are exhausted with the Rays front office. I’m almost ready for the team to move and for Tampa/Orlando to get an expansion team with an owner that will invest money to win a title and with a front office that’s not forced to use Spin Rate to gain advantages.
If they weren’t into the sabremetric garbage, as you call it, they would finish last every year with that payroll.
I would almost rather have them finish last than to get into the playoffs with a broken staff. If $ternberg would allow for more money to be spent on players, maybe they could’ve went all in during the 2020 trade deadline or any of the last few trade deadlines. They will never win a title with $ternberg controlling the payroll. They will get in the playoffs a lot, but don’t let it fool you. Without the reliance on spin rate, they would be like the 1998-2007 Rays who were frequently talked about when the topic of team contraction came up. It’s time for Rays fans to hold $tu accountable and demand more payroll or quit coming to the park. I’ve had it! The SABRMetric crap won’t be worth a darn unless the purse strings are loosened and a solid team is built that will bring that title to Tampa.
Agreed! Being middling is the worst thing for fans (not the team, the fans!). If they have no hope in the postseason, I want them to be awful. This staff right now doesn’t have many good pieces and they need a lot of things to go right just to make the playoffs. I’d be happy with a partial tanking right now to get a good player kin the draft.
It is ridiculous how they’ve slow-played Baz’s rehab from TJ. He should have been ready to be in the rotation in April. Then we heard that they were eyeing a late-summer return.
This is why keeping players in AAA for ‘seasoning’ is always a bad idea. They always become AAAA players or oft-injured players. Lowe/Aranda/Mead are all good examples. Babying players in the name of cost should not be the motto of this team.
lol ok. Yes, a defense-only CF is just what this team needs!
Doing wonders for the Jays.
They already have one in Siri.
Please ban you.
The Snell Trade/Nelson Cruz Trade were awful. Civale trade also has potential to be awful if Manzardo pans out.