Will Andrew Friedman’s reputation take a little bit of a hit if Rhyne Hughes is successful in Baltimore? 

Hughes was promoted to the Orioles today and promptly singled in his first at bat of his major league debut.  The Orioles are desperate for offense and if Hughes can hit even a little, he should get regular playing time. 

In retrospect, the move for the veteran catcher Zaun made sense for the Rays at the time.  But, it paid little dividends.

Last June, the Tampa Bay Rays drafted Levon Washington first in the 2009 draft.  But, in the end, they couldn’t come to terms on a contract and Washington decided to go to college instead of taking the Rays’ best offer.

Eleven games and an injured hand into the 2010 Chipola season, Washington certainly isn’t turning heads.  He’s hitting .231, 9 for 39 with only three extra base hits and three RBI.  According to an assessment from website 5tooltalk.com:

While he’s far from a finished product, he knows what needs to be done to reach his lofty potential. “This season I need to get healthy, and be healthy when the draft comes.”

This afternoon, I had ESPN Radio’s Colin Cowherd on while driving home from work.  He was closing his show and talking about the Angels-Yankees series and was talking about how great a Sunday night game 7 would be.  He made a point, emphasized his point by repeating it a couple of times, that a game 7 this Sunday night would be the greatest game played in the past two years.

Ironically, then I came home and watched last year’s ALCS game 7.  Red Sox vs. Rays on the MLB Network.  They were showing it as one of baseball’s classics. 

I’m biased, as I have the wild memories of being there, but I have to say that an Angels-Yankees game 7 would have a lot of catching up to do to exceed last year’s game.  The pitching of Matt Garza.  The emergence of David Price.  The clutch hitting of Willy Aybar.     

National sportsradio dudes like Colin Cowherd can discard the amazing run that the Rays made last year.  But, the fact remains, what they did last year was incredible.  And, no matter how much drama he tries to build around a 3-2 Yankees series heading back to the Bronx, last year’s Rays run is tough to top.

No, Jim Parque is not a name that most people associate with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  He made only five starts with Tampa Bay, resulting in a 1-1 record and a whopping 11.94 ERA. 

Chris DeLuca in the Chicago Sun-Times writes about Parque’s confession of how HGH was used by him to try to keep his job with the Rays.  If his ERA is any indication, the HGH wasn’t really working for him. 

But, Parque saw and felt the difference.  In a first-hand account that he gave to the Chicago Sun-Times, Jim Parque describes how HGH impacted his life as he tried to hold on to a professional baseball career and, moreso, how it impacts him now. 

With my career in jeopardy, I turned to performance-enhancing drugs, like some other players did. I never had needed them before, but with a shoulder that wouldn’t heal, it was realistically the only thing I could turn to.

This isn’t the story of a star.  It wouldn’t come close to explaining why someone with high levels of baseball talent like Alex Rodriguez or Mark McGwire might allegedly try something like this.  But, it’s the story of a good baseball player and the struggles to hold on to the dream.

Did I hurt people? Did I disgrace baseball? Yes, but I was trying to preserve a financial future, keep my family’s lifestyle intact and keep a lifelong journey alive.