Scheduling Quirk Puts Rays In A Squeeze At Metrodome

MINNEAPOLIS - Wondering why the Rays just spent about 45 hours in Minnesota, playing the Twins twice in the middle of what otherwise would have been a stretch of 17 straight home games?

They were just feeling the squeeze.

It happens every spring, a quirk of baseball's calendar that essentially requires teams to wedge in a pair of two-game series where they would normally play one three-game series.

Major League Baseball calls it "squeeze week," and Katy Feeney, MLB's senior vice president for scheduling and club relations, said it boils down to math.

The regular season covers 26 weeks, in which each team must play 52 series. Sounds simple enough, but baseball loses half a week to the All-Star break, so those 52 series have to be forced into 51 slots.

Thus, squeeze week was born.

Depending on how the schedule is set up, it sometimes goes by almost unnoticed. For instance, last season the Rays' squeeze week was made up of two games against the Yankees at Tropicana Field on April 23-24 at the end of an eight-game homestand followed by a pair of games at the Angels on April 25-26 to start a five-game road trip. The Rays also played three games in Anaheim later in the year, Sept. 17-19, so the two-game set in April didn't necessarily stand out.

Feeney said MLB "ideally" tries to set up the two-game series between division rivals so the home games can be evened out when they meet in another series later in the season. However, divisions featuring an odd number of teams make it impossible for that to be a universal rule.

So the two games the Rays played against the Yankees this week will be balanced out when they host New York for four games May 12-15, but the two games just played in the Metrodome mark Tampa Bay's only trip to the Twin Cities this season.

JUAN-DERFUL: At long last, RHP Juan Salas arrived at the Naimoli Complex on Thursday. The Rays still aren't sure what to expect from the reliever, who worked out at their complex in the Dominican Republic while awaiting a visa.

Executive vice president Andrew Friedman said Salas threw a bullpen session Thursday but was told to take it easy. The Rays have a 30-day window in which to evaluate Salas before they have to remove him from the restricted list and reinstate him to the 40-man roster, but they won't necessarily take all of that time. For now, they just want to see what he has.

"We're relieved that this process is over, and we're excited to get Juan to the States and get him back pitching," Friedman said. "Physically, he looks great. Now it's just a case of building up his arm strength and getting him in a position to go compete against hitters. We'll have a better feel for when he'll be ready to do that in seven to 10 days."

REHAB WATCH: C Dioner Navarro (lacerated fingers) got six at-bats in an extended spring training game Thursday and should be in line to rejoin the Rays on Tuesday, two days after he is eligible to come off the disabled list.

Navarro will catch seven innings at Vero Beach tonight, with LHP Scott Kazmir (elbow strain) on the mound for three or four of them (about 45 pitches). Navarro will stay with Vero and DH on Saturday, then catch seven more innings there Sunday as RHP Matt Garza (radial nerve irritation) makes a rehab start that is slated to run four innings or 60 pitches. Manager Joe Maddon said Navarro also might play for Vero on Monday before joining the Rays at Disney for the Blue Jays series.

Garza might be in line to jump right back into the Rays' rotation next Friday against the Red Sox if his start goes well, but that won't be determined until next week.

NICE DEBUT: LHP Kurt Birkins' Rays debut went as well as he could have hoped for. He set down the four batters he faced Wednesday night in order, demonstrating to himself that he's completely back from the elbow neuritis that landed him on the DL to open the season.

"It felt really good to finally throw to hitters when it means something," Birkins said. "It's a definite confidence booster, letting me know that my arm is OK and the trust is there, too."

Marc Lancaster