Kevin Cash: “In Fairness To Matt, We Didn’t See A Healthy Matt Duffy Last Year”
February 8th, 2017So how bad was Matt Duffy’s Achilles injury last year?
Yes, his season was cut short in September for surgery. But what were the Rays getting in the 21 games they saw their 25-year-old shortstop?
Kevin Cash hopped on WDAE-AM 620 and painted a picture of the real Duffy not showing up in 2016. Cash backed up the reports that Duffy is healing rapidly and is ready to roll out of the gate this season as a full-time starter.
“In fairness to Matt, we didn’t see a healthy Matt Duffy last year,” Cash said. “This is a very good player that we’re excited about. We’re going to work him along in spring training, but we have every anticipation that he’ll be ready for [opening day].”
In what would be pure Rays comedy, Duffy would be sidelined until May and Brad Miller would move back to short and tear it up in April.
Joe’s not wishing Duffy ill, just having some fun.
At second base, Cash said committee will be the approach.
“We’re going to see some matchups [at second base,] Cash said.”There’s going to be opportunities for Tim Beckham, for Brad Miller, for Nick Franklin, and most likely Daniel Robertson, a young player that’s going to be in camp for us.”
Robertson, 22, a former first-round pick of Oakland, hit .259 in 436 at bats in Durham last year. He came to the Rays in the 2015 trade of Ben Zobrist and Yunel Escobar.
The full cash audio from 620wdae.com is below.