At Home Plate - Anything Goes: What Are The Rays Doing?

At Home Plate

Written by Adam Adkins (Contact & Archive) on June 20, 2009

Let me say first off, as a Yankee fan, I fear the Rays. I fear Evan Longoria and his 152 Adjusted OPS (OPS+). I fear Carlos Pena and his 139 OPS+. I do not fear their weak-armed and ace-less bullpen, but I do see the good in having Matt Garza and James Shields, two Better than League Average Innings Munchers or BLAIMs.

Can Carl Crawford and his Rays get back to the play-offs this year?

Photo by Keith Allison, used under creative commons license.

The pitching isn’t stupendous, but it’s good, and right now, that makes them second behind Boston. Because the Yankees have been dealing with either mediocrity or awfulness from all of their non-Sabathia starters and general inconsistency from the entire bullpen, the Rays slide ahead of them.

But I don’t love this rotation. Shields and Garza are both good innings munchers, but does anyone want Shields and Garza when the Red Sox have Lester and Beckett (or Smoltz, or Penny, or Buchholz...yeesh) or when the Yankees have Sabathia or, well, I was hoping someone, but there isn’t anyone.

But this column isn’t about the Yankees, it’s about the Rays.

Who are currently sporting a thoroughly nifty Pythagorean record of 40-28, which would put them in...second place. The Rays have the best run differential in the AL East and the second best in all of baseball, which frightens me. That sort of thing often screams of an upcoming hot streak, but can the Rays do it?

I wonder.

The 2008 Rays were an unusually healthy team. Sure, Carl Crawford missed time. Yep, Evan Longoria missed time. Shocking! Scott Kazmir was hurt.

But they got consistent production all year long from their position players.

When does that happen?

The defining reason behind the Rays revival (it’s not a revival, wasn’t it more like a birth?) was the defense. Or was it? How about the fact that they added a wonderful third baseman and found a position for the uber-talented BJ Upton?

It wasn’t all the defense, although no one can deny that they went from ‘holy crap that’s awful’ on defense to ‘pretty slick!,’ which is a big leap, in case you don’t believe me. That sort of thing makes up for a lot of bad pitching or days when the bats don’t arrive on time.

But for 31 wins?

I don’t believe it.

The 2008 Rays were fluky. That’s common in all teams that go on Championship runs; look at the Phillies. I’ll bet you that we just saw Cole Hamels’ best year. Those career years happen. When they happen together, you might find yourself in October.

So how do we explain the run differential?

More luck?

Be honest, I don’t know what to say. And in that situation, check the sked.

Oh, here we go. Even though they’ve played 18 games against Boston and New York, well, that’s only 18 games, and they’ve played 68 total.

They played a whopping 43 games against the Orioles, White Sox, Indians, Rockies, Marlins, Royals, Twins, A’s, Mariners, Nationals.

I think we may have found it! Then again, good teams do have to beat the bad teams, but it’ll be interesting to see how the Rays react when they play good teams.

But, wait. The AL isn’t great, there are only three really good teams, and the Rays are one of them.

The other two? Boston and New York.

Good luck ranking them.

Gonna be a great pennant race!

Adam also writes at his blog.

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