The Tampa Bay Rays’ social media team took a shot at the Pittsburgh Pirates on Twitter on Monday night.
The Pittsburgh Pirates have not been to the postseason since 2015, and have since been situated towards the bottom of the National League standings. Perhaps one of their most recent moves that came back to haunt them was their deal with the Tampa Bay Rays that landed them Chris Archer back in 2018 in exchange for Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows and a player to be named later, who turned out to be Shane Baz.
On Monday night, Baz, the Rays top prospect, made his MLB debut against the Toronto Blue Jays. After Baz’s night was finished, Tampa Bay’s social media team posted his stat-line but he did not refer to him by his name. Rather, they photo featured the caption “player to be named later.”
Rays take shot at Pirates during Shane Baz’s MLB debut
Pirates fans had themselves a bad night if they happened to stumble upon the Rays’ tweet on Monday night. They did not need to be reminded of what turned out to be a catastrophic trade for Pittsburgh.
Baz was the player to be named later in that deal, and he turned into Tampa Bay’s top prospect in their farm system. Through 17 starts between Double-A Montgomery and Triple-A Durham, Baz recorded a 2.06 ERA, a 0.80 WHIP, 113 strikeouts and 13 walks over 78.2 innings of work.
In Baz’s debut against the Blue Jays, Baz surrendered two earned runs on two solo home runs by Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurriel, and struck out five batters.
If you thought the 2018 trade between the Rays and Pirates was bad, you were reminded on Monday that it may go down as one of the most lopsided trades in recent memory.