The Rays Plan to Keep Calm and Carry On

The Tampa Bay Rays had been the very best crew in Major League Baseball over the primary three months of the season. In July, they had been the second worst.

With 16 losses in 24 video games, it was their worst month since 2007, the yr earlier than they dropped the “Devil” from their moniker. During this monthlong about-face, they went from main the American League East by 6.5 video games to trailing the upstart Baltimore Orioles by a recreation and a half.

Yet, within the closing hours earlier than Tuesday’s buying and selling deadline, there was no panic within the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, the place Tampa Bay was on the point of play the second of three video games towards the last-place Yankees. The Rays understood they had been by no means going to maintain up the quick tempo they carried by means of April, simply as they acknowledged they’d not proceed to play as poorly as they did in July.

The Rays had simply withstood the nadir of their season, they usually nonetheless had the third greatest file within the majors and held a four-game lead over the Houston Astros for the highest spot within the A.L. wild-card standings. As they noticed it, they had been in pretty fine condition.

“We believe that this group is a championship-caliber group. We believe that they’ve shown that to be the case this season, over the course of the entire season,” Rays General Manager Peter Bendix stated Tuesday evening. “And we believe that that’s the group moving forward that can take us where we want to go.”

Tampa Bay has outscored its opponents by 142 runs this season, leading to an anticipated file of 69-41, three video games higher than the crew’s precise file. Baltimore’s run differential — plus-60 — signifies that crew would sometimes be 59-48. So a number of the hole between the groups could possibly be attributed to luck.

The largest drawback for the Rays throughout their July swoon was their offense going chilly. After scoring 5.64 runs a recreation over the primary three months, they averaged 3.63 in July.

“We had eight or nine guys all raking at the same time to start the year,” stated Manager Kevin Cash. “And then eight of the nine stopped at the same time.”

The bats seem like waking up once more. Over the previous week, the Rays have averaged 4.43 runs a recreation. Second baseman Brandon Lowe is batting .423 with 4 residence runs in his final seven video games. Third baseman Isaac Paredes has hit three of his team-leading 21 residence runs inside the final 4 video games. And Randy Arozarena, the crew’s All-Star outfielder, broke an 0-for-26 slide with a two-run homer on Tuesday.

After Monday’s 5-1 win over the Yankees, outfielder Josh Lowe stated he felt the crew was getting its confidence and vitality again.

“It’s a 162-game season — guys get tired,” he stated. “We all kind of just got tired at the same time. But it’s time to pick it up again. I think we all realized that we’re getting down to the wire a little bit. It’s time to put it into gear and get playing some good baseball.”

That religion explains the method Tampa Bay took within the weeks main as much as the deadline. Instead of going all-in for the largest stars on the block, the Rays made a number of smaller strikes so as to add depth to the upper ranges of their farm system and reinforce their injury-depleted pitching employees.

“When you have a team like we do, that we think of as a championship-level team, you feel a lot of urgency to make that team better — and you also have maybe fewer areas that are obvious in which you can improve,” Bendix stated. “We really do believe in the quality of this team to this point.”

Starters Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen each went down with season-ending accidents earlier this yr, as did reliever Garrett Cleavinger. Josh Fleming has been out since early June with elbow irritation and isn’t notably near returning. Neither Andrew Kittredge, a reliever, nor Shane Baz, a younger starter, have pitched in any respect this season after having Tommy John surgical procedure final yr. An indirect pressure price Tyler Glasnow practically two months at the beginning of the season, and the crew’s ace left-hander, Shane McClanahan, missed the primary half of July with again tightness.

With all that in thoughts, the Rays made their most notable deadline deal on Monday once they acquired the right-handed starter Aaron Civale from the Cleveland Guardians for Kyle Manzardo, a 23-year-old first baseman who’s a consensus top-100 prospect within the minors.

Civale, 28, has quietly turn out to be one of many higher beginning pitchers in baseball over the previous yr and a half. Across 13 begins this season, he’s 5-2 with a 2.34 ERA. He doesn’t have overwhelming stuff — his fastball velocity sits within the low 90s — however he makes up for it by pounding the zone with a mix of cutters and curveballs and inducing weak contact. Importantly, he’s below membership management by means of the 2025 season. Having him round for extra than simply the following few months made the Rays extra prepared to half with a prospect of Manzardo’s expertise.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had our top five starters all healthy at the same time,” Erik Neader, Tampa Bay’s president of baseball operations, stated on a convention name on Monday. “This was the most obvious need we had.”

As the frenzy of deadline day picked up within the afternoon, the Rays’ gamers adopted alongside eagerly, although their pleasure had little to do with strikes they anticipated their entrance workplace to make. They knew a number of the different prime groups within the A.L. had traded for All-Stars and future Hall of Famers, however they weren’t involved.

“We’re watching, but not in a competitive way,” stated Brandon Lowe. “We follow because we all love baseball and it’s fun to see what moves teams make.”

He added: “We don’t need wholesale changes.”

A couple of hours later, the Rays beat the Yankees, 5-2, for his or her third straight win and fifth in seven video games. They are 1-0 in August.