Rays at Indians

Welcome to a wet and chilly Chain O’Lakes Park in Winter Haven.

The tarp is still on the field and members of the stadium grounds crew, as well as some people doing a little time with community service, are using blowers to dry puddles in the outfield and blow some of the water off the tarp.

The Rays bus has arrived.

Jeff Niemann, who’s scheduled to follow Jason Hammel to the mound, is doing arm exercises on the outfield. He’s pulling on a large rubber band attached to the wall down the left field line.

B.J. Upton has just spied the puddle in center field, which the grounds crew and their helpers have been working on for the better part of the last hour. B.J. is not too happy. I think he might need his water wings today. That, or play awfully deep.

I’m roger Mooney and this is one of my favorite parks. See my blog, The Strike Zone, for more on that.

It’s also one of the buggiest.

I think some of those flies that attacked Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain during last year’s ALCS, greeted me when I arrived at the open-air press box.

There’s country music playing over the PA, and I do believe the gentleman is right. It is 5 o’clock somewhere.

This old ballpark is coming to life.

What am I calling old? This stadium was built in 1966. It’s younger than me.

The Rays are taking batting practice in the cages next to the Indians clubhouse. There should be baseball, and we should start at 1:05 p.m.

Here is the Rays lineup:

2B Aki Iwamura
C Dioner Navarro
1B Carlos Pena
CF B.J. Upton
LF Eric Hinske
RF Jonny Gomes
DH Hector Gimenez
3B Joel Guzman
SS Jason Bartlett
P Jason Hammel

No lineups for the Indians yet. I’ll post them as soon as I get them.