FanHouse Trever Miller

Ryan Franklin is enjoying the best year of his career as a 36-year-old, and he's being rewarded by the St. Louis Cardinals' front office with a contract extension. The deal was announced via press release and financial terms were not disclosed, but Franklin is now locked up by the Cardinals through 2011.

The Cardinals also announced they have extended the contract of left-handed relief specialist Trever Miller through 2010 with a vesting option for 2011.

"We are pleased to announce that both Ryan and Trever will remain in a Cardinals uniform for the foreseeable future," said Cardinals' Vice President/General Manager John Mozeliak.

FanHouse continues its 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Tampa Bay Rays.

Although they ended up falling short at the end, 2008 was the year of the Rays. After being the butt of jokes for the first 10 years of its existence, Tampa Bay turned an impressive collection of baseball talent into an impressive team, finally assembling a competent bullpen, and utilizing some position shifts to put a much improved defense on the field. With the pieces in place, everything came together, and the Rays increased their win total by 31 games on their way to winning both the AL East and AL pennant.

Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.

As you may have heard, the Tampa Bay Rays burst onto the scene in 2008, finishing the regular season with 97 wins, 27 more than their previous franchise high of 70. They then breezed past the White Sox in the ALDS and survived Boston's furious comeback in the ALCS before falling to the Phillies in the World Series.

On its face, Tampa's story may seem similar to that of the 2007 Rockies, who were an afterthought in the pennant race in early September yet ended up still playing in late October. But in reality, the surprise teams of the last two years couldn't be more different. While Colorado was led by guys in their late-20s having career years, the Rays were a very young team that came into its own earlier than expected. Nearly all of their key parts will be back for '09 and beyond; if Tampa Bay makes the right offseason moves, it is set up quite nicely for a potentially dominant 3-5 year run.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

The Rays pulled out all the stops in Game 2 of the World Series to get even with the Phillies. They scratched out a victory on the offensive side, scoring three of their four runs on a pair of ground ball outs and a safety squeeze.

Much will probably be made of manager Joe Maddon's willingness to play small ball in a critical postseason game because, hey, let's face it, the mainstream media and baseball old-timers love it when the little things play a big factor in crucial postseason games.

But that might be missing the forest for the trees. The Rays are headed to Philadelphia knotted at 1-all in the World Series and ready to go on a roll similar to the one they went on in the ALCS. And the reason they look poised to reel off a few wins, and maybe just run off with the World Series trophy in the process, is because of their almost surreal pitching depth.

Look, Evan Longoria and B.J. Upton are terrific young players. Whatever is brewing in Tampa Bay -- whether it's a dynasty or an annual contender in the AL East -- both are going to be a big part of something special. But neither has done much so far in this series. Longoria is hitless, Upton grounded into two key double plays in Game 1 and their partner in the middle of the order, Carlos Pena, is also 0-for-the-Fall-Classic.

While the Tampa Bay Rays have caught everybody by surprise this season (most expected them to improve in 2008, but nobody had them having the best record in baseball on July 2nd), one of the biggest surprises on the team has been the performance of closer Troy Percival. Percival had been out of baseball for a year and a half before joining the Cardinals bullpen last season, and signed with the Rays to be their closer this season.

Personally, I didn't think the 38-year old would be all that helpful to the Rays but it turns out that I'm an idiot, and Percival has been a big reason why the Rays are in first place. He already has 19 saves in 21 chances for Tampa this season, even though he missed a few weeks on the disabled list at the beginning of June. Well, it's going to be a while until he gets his next save, because he's making a return trip.

As expected, closer Troy Percival landed on the 15-day disabled list due to his left hamstring strain.

What was somewhat surprising was what the Rays did to take his place, calling up RHP Mitch Talbot from Triple-A Durham and planning to move RHP Jason Hammel into a more significant bullpen role.

Percival was on the DL earlier thanks to the same hamstring, and had to be removed from Monday's game (much to his chagrin) when it acted up on him again. Tampa is hoping that this time his two weeks off, combined with the All-Star break, will be enough for the hammy to fully heal.

The Rays will use a closer by committee in his absence, using Dan Wheeler, Trever Miller, Grant Balfour, and J.P. Howell as they see fit.

How many home runs is too many to give up in one game? Two? Four? Six? Six is definitely too many. I don't think teams hit six home runs too often. I don't know the stats, but I can't imagine too many baseball teams win games after they give up six home runs. The Houston Astros will certainly vouch for me. They gave up six homers today and lost to the Rangers 14-1. Let's hit up the home run roll call from today:

• Woody Williams served up three dingers in his four innings of work.
  
• Rick White only gave up one in his three innings of work. Gold star for Mr. White.
• Trever Miller gave up none, but he only pitched two-thirds of an inning. No gold star, that's what he's supposed to do.
  
• Brian Moehler gave up two in an inning and a third. Not so good.
  

Mark Teixeira and Victor Diaz accounted for two-thirds of the six bombs by hitting two apiece. Kenny Lofton and Ramon Vazquez (who had five RBIs in this one) finished out the yard work.

The loss that Woody Williams took was his sixth, to go with only win win on the year. He actually only struck out two more batters than home runs allowed. That's generally a bad sign for any start. I know Williams is a respected veteran and the Astros are paying him handsomely and all, but he's 1-6 with a 5.52 ERA. They've gotta try to do something with him because he's clearly not getting the job done.