Veteran INF Morgan Ensberg was released this morning, reducing the Rays spring roster to 36.

Ensberg said he was surprised because he had expected a Triple-A assignment "worst case", but was not upset and hoped to catch on with another team.
 
"I'm not mad at all,'' he said. "You just want to go and scramble and get a job, and that's the priority. There's still a little bit of time. I'm really happy with the way I've played, I've hit the ball hard and I've gotten some hits and I've made some adjustments, so that's made me optimistic. ... This is how the game works, and we know that going in.''

 Manager Joe Maddon said the Rays made the decision because they didn't have room at Triple-A for Ensberg, who hit .227 in 22 games with no homers and 4 RBIs.

 "He had a very nice spring, he had done a lot of good things, I thought he was actually playing a lot better,'' Maddon said. "The problem was that there was just not going to be any room at Triple-A so we wanted to do that now. Really a classy guy.''

Said Ensberg: " If I had been playing very badly this would be very difficult, because I'd be like, "Shoot, I just played my way out of a job." Whereas this wasn't a play your way out, it simply was that there wasn't room.''