The Tampa Bay Devil Rays will come to the Metrodome for a four game series beginning on Thursday. They’ve lost 4 of their last five games, but are coming off a 6-5 victory against the Rangers on Wednesday night. They split their opening series with the Yankees last week. The D-rays are known as the perennial cellar-dwellers of the AL Eeast, but they might be starting to build up a better team (though they’re not there yet).

The pitching matchups seem to favor the Twins with both teams’ aces facing off on Friday night. The matchups for all four games:

• Thursday: Carlos Silva (0-1, 1.80 ERA) vs. Casey Fossum (0-1, 17.18 ERA)
• Friday: Johan Santana (2-0, 2.77 ERA) vs. Scott Kazmir (0-1, 6.75 ERA)
• Saturday: Sidney Ponson (0-1, 12.71 ERA) vs. Edwin Jackson (0-1, 6.35 ERA)
• Sunday: Boof Bonser (0-1, 6.97 ERA) vs. Jae Seo (0-1, 9.64 ERA)

There are 2 wins out of that whole set of eight pitchers and they both belong to Santana.

Typical Starters

• Carl Crawford, LF: Crawford strikes out more than he walks, but he does have speed. He also belted 18 HR last season.
• Rocco Baldelli, CF: Baldelli batted .302 and hit 16 HR in limited playing time last season. Like Crawford, he doesn’t walk much. Him and Crawford have both batted leadoff some this eason.
• Ben Zobrist, SS: Zobrist is a rookie who’s gotten off to a slow start this year. B.J. Upton has also seen some playing time at SS this year.
• Ty Wigginton, 1B: He can play just about any infield position, but has settled at first for the most part. He hit 24 HR last season, but not much else is too impressive with Wiggington.
• Delmon Young, RF: He could be an future star in Tampa Bay. He’s started of the season with an 8 game hit streak.
• Akinori Iwamura, 3B: Is one of the lesser known Japanese imports. He also has had a hit in every game including a 4 for 4 game in Toronto last week.
• Dioner Navarro, C: Navarro has been a backup for several years, but is the starter this year in Tampa Bay. He’s off to a slow start at the plate.
• B.J. Upton, 2B: Upton’s position has changed a few times through the years. He played SS a few couple years ago (as a late season call-up) and then played some third base last year. This season he’s landed at 2B and he’s off to a good start at the plate, with a .429 OBP in seven games.
• Jonny Gomes, DH: The D-rays are a lot like the Twins in the haven’t established a regular DH. I’ll list Gomes here just because he’s had the most starts there. For a guy that strikes out 1/3 of the time, his 20 HR per season aren’t near enough.

Al Reyes is the team’s closer which probably says plenty about how low profile their bullpen is. Their bullpen has been about as ineffective as their starters so far this year.

The Twins didn’t play the Devil Rays until the second half of the season last year, so it comes as no surprise that they were defeated the Rays 6 out of 7 games by a combined score of 39-15.

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