Tracking the Preaux Career of B.J. Ryan

[JMV JustMyView]

There is not a more deserving guy than BJ...Congrats and I am sure BJ is proud to have played for the Cajuns...He sure bring back lots of memories of his playing days at UL you just knew he had that special something..

[DaddyCajun]

This is great for BJ, as he was a special kind of player/person. I hope this is just the begining for BJ, and hope he pitches for years to come. I also hope this helps Robe with his recruiting and building of a great UL program.

DaddyCajun

[studentfan]

This is great for BJ, as he was a special kind of player/person. I hope this is just the begining for BJ, and hope he pitches for years to come. I also hope this helps Robe with his recruiting and building of a great UL program.

DaddyCajun

With this all star apperance he's going to have a lot of power to bargain with the O's or another team to sign that contract.

[CAJUNJUDO]

B.J. Ryan came in to finish the ninth to get his 19th save.
....only this time it was in front of a record crowd.

Only gave up a bunt single to Johnny Damon, which extended his hitting streak to a career-high 25 games.

Attendance at the game was 49,828, the largest crowd in the 14-year history of Camden Yards. All four games were sellouts, totaling 195,722 -- the most for a four-game home series in Orioles history.

[TheRaginCajun06]

Awesome!

I wish I could aquire him in a trade for my fantasy baseball team!

[NewsCopy]

Last season, he quietly became major league baseball's dominant set-up man.

This year, B. J. Ryan's arriving one inning later, and the numbers are equally eye-popping.

Not by coincidence, his Baltimore Orioles are in the thick of the American League East race, ahead of the New York Yankees and only two games behind defending World Series champion Boston at the All-Star break.

And Ryan, who seven seasons ago was the Most Outstanding Player in the Sun Belt Conference baseball tournament for Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns, adds a slightly more elite honor to his resumé this week.

Tonight at Comerica Park in Detroit, sitting right there in the American League All-Star dugout with the best in the game, will be a guy that the Sun Belt coaches didn't think was good enough to be on the all-conference first team.

It wasn't even a tough pick for this year's All-Star contest. Many people inside the game felt that the big lefthander from Bossier City could have been in last year's All-Star tilt.

"You can't measure what B.J. did for this team last season," Baltimore manager Lee Mazzilli told the Baltimore Sun before this season began. "I think he's one of the best in the game, left-handed, right-handed or whatever."

Ryan, ever the jovial Louisiana boy - except when pitching -, is only the third player in SLI/USL/UL history ever named to an All-Star team. The others - Ron Guidry and Al Dark - make for pretty good company.

"It's exciting," Ryan said last weekend, one week after his selection. "It's the kind of thing you call and tell your family about and they're excited for you."

The folks that may not be excited are National League hitters, if the AL gets into the late innings with a lead.

Ryan has made 28 mound appearances since May 1 as the Orioles' closer. In 26 of those games, the opposition hasn't managed a run. He's struck out 59 batters in 39 innings this year. He has 19 saves at the mid-point of the season.

More? His ERA in night games this year is 0.42, a fact that says something about how nasty his cutter can be away from the light of day. At home in Camden Yards this year, with a crowd that swells his confidence past his 6-foot-6, 255-pound frame, his ERA is 0.40.

The rest of the story

Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com

[RaginRash]

Turbine, where is that "Ragin' Cajun for Life" quote form BJ? That gets me geeked up.

[NewsCopy]

ESPN - Closer B.J. Ryan plans to enter the free agent market, Orioles executive vice president Mike Flanagan told the Baltimore Sun. Ryan's agent, John Courtright, informed the club that they had no interest in negotiating during the team's 15-day exclusive window. "We'll see when we get there, but we certainly have not been eliminated from that process," Flanagan told the paper. "It's what most players do when you've come this far. You're a couple of weeks away from being able to be a free agent. I can't think of too many cases where it's any different than that." The Orioles will likely be up against big spenders like the New York Mets, New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The rest of the story -->

[NewsCopy]

The Toronto Blue Jays, with a payroll surplus of $25-30 million for next year, have made a bold statement that they intend to be big players in the AL East by signing lefty free agent reliever B.J. Ryan to a five-year $47 million contract, the Daily News has learned. The 6-6, 260-pound 29-year-old Ryan had 36 saves in 41 attempts for the Orioles this past season and had been pursued by the Indians, Tigers and Red Sox, with both the Mets and Phillies viewing him as a fallback in the event they couldn’t sign Billy Wagner. Early on, the Yankees talked to Ryan’s representive about the prospect of him being a set-up man for Mariano Rivera and were willing to pay him closer money ($8-9 million per year) to do it. However, Ryan told them he was only interested in closing and the Yankees would never have offered him more than three years. The rest of the story By BILL MADDEN DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

[JMV JustMyView]

Nice fat ||| contract...just sucks that he sign with a ||||ty team...none the less congrats to BJ...