Moore reminisces about Trop, Rays, Maddon
On Monday, despite not being scheduled to start, Matt Moore offered himself to Tampa Bay media in the Rangers’ dugout.
It’s the pitcher’s first time back in St. Pete as a baseball player since he was traded to the San Francisco Giants for Matt Duffy.
Appropriately, at the time Moore sat down with the press on Monday, Duffy was penciled in to be the first Ray he would face as an opponent. That’s unlikely now, as the third baseman left last night’s game with a tight hamstring and was scheduled to undergo an MRI on Tuesday. Duffy is headed for the 10-day Disabled List, and will therefore not be in the lineup on Tuesday.
In his time with the media, Moore talked about how strange it is to come into Tropicana Field as a visitor rather than as a member of the home team. He talked about seeing teammates and the familiar staff who come to the Trop every day, and about the special teams he played on.
As it’s the 20th anniversary of MLB regular season baseball in St. Petersburg, Moore’s trip down memory lane is welcome. When he pitched at Tropicana Field, the Rays were a force in baseball under Andrew Friedman and Joe Maddon. Moore was part of a Rays team in 2011 that had to wait until Game 162 to find out where they would be playing in October. He was part of the 2013 team that went to the ALDS against Boston. Matt Moore was a part of Joe Maddon’s unique and barely-believable Rays baseball.
Moore takes on the Rays tonight at Tropicana Field, and when he does it will be hard for him and for everybody else to forget about the good times.
