If there's one thing you can say about the Tampa Bay Rays' season thus far: it hasn't been boring. First there was the debacle over Manny Ramirez, then the early injuries to Evan Longoria and Jeff Niemann, and then the emergence of Matt Joyce as a league-leading hitter. Casey Kotchman has appeared as a very successful first baseman for the Rays, seemingly from nowhere, and James Shields is having a career year. The Rays may be behind both the Yankees and Red Sox in the division race at the moment, but it has certainly still been an exciting ride.
And throughout it all, Sam Fuld has keep Rays' fans entertained with his spectacular defensive work. The Rays have the best defense in the majors this season -- by far -- and Fuld has been a big reason why, making diving catch after diving catch in the outfield. Over the course of our game recaps here, we've collected a fair number of pictures of Sam Fuld in full layout form, and I thought it might be fun to take a look at them all in one place. Enjoy!
These two pictures are from when the Rays faced the Marlins on June 19th, just a couple of days ago. Click to enlarge:
More pictures after the jump.
This catch happened against the White Sox on April 18th:
And of course, the catch that started the Legend of Sam Fuld: his spectacular layout against the White Sox on April 8th:
For even more pictures of Sam Fuld's amazing catches, check out this gallery at the St. Petersburg Times. They have actual professional photographers, while the best we can do is screen captures from MLB.tv.