ST. PETERSBURG — Rays C Curt Casali said he owes his sudden power stroke to a team-wide change in hitting philosophy implemented during the previous road trip.
“We had a couple of hitters meetings a while back and emphasized on hitting early (in the count) and getting good pitches to hit,” Casali said. “Working counts is great. It just hasn’t been working for us. You can try and grind the pitcher out as much as you want, but if you’re not successful doing it, it backfires. So we’d rather be on the aggressive side and take our chances with the starter than grinding them out.