Everyone knows at this point about the Tampa Bay Rays, who by coincidence, took ”Devil” out of their name and have taken a huge step forward.
When the new ownership took over, a bunch of fans knew things were looking up for the Rays. People need to take a step back though, and realize the Rays are still a long shot to make the playoffs this year.
The Rays do have 49 wins already, which really isn’t that far from the 66 they had total last year. But the Rays will have a tough time keeping that pace up because of the division they play in.
The Yankees and Red Sox will heat up even more, taking games from each other. In addition to that, the AL East is the best division in baseball in terms of win and losses. The fifth-place team the Blue Jays are only three games away from an even win-loss record. Baltimore has more wins than losses equally as surprising.
When the division games come later in the season, all this teams will literally beat each other up. They are all so even, no team can overpower another, thus limiting total number of wins.
The winner of the division could have a win total of around 95 wins this year. That doesn’t bode well for the Rays, because it could end up being more of a free-for-all.
The current state of the league doesn’t favor them. All but four teams have a winning record at home right now in the American League. That’s unusual in itself because that means only three teams right now have a winning record on the road. Only four teams, the Ranges, Mariners, Orioles, and Royals have given up more runs than they have scored.
The Rangers and Orioles are within striking distance of turning that positive as well. No team sticks out when it comes to 1 run games this year. The Rays have a record of 14-10 in 1 run games. Decent yes, but great definitely no.
The Rays lineup isn’t that great either. It's currently ranked seventh in the American league in terms of runs scored. Total bases is also another important statistic to judge production. They rank seventh as well in this category. Pretty much the only thing the Rays are leading in are stolen bases, but even then they rank sixth in stolen base success.
As I said, the Rays have a great pitching staff, but it’s young. Almost every year we see these young teams fall back a little bit as the season winds down. The Yankees and Red Sox will be in the hunt come the end of the season for the playoffs, plus they have more experience. This experience stretches all the way to playing meaningful baseball in September.
Hitters will also probably figure out some of the pitchers as the season goes on. Even if the Rays pitchers can keep up their pace, the hitting is bound to hit some slumps along the way. The Rays have been able to stay healthy for the most part for the whole year too which is bound to catch up with them at some point.
Everyone likes to cheer for the underdog and especially the Rays this year, including myself. In reality, the Rays will finish the year as the most surprising team, but still not make the playoffs. The surprise will instead be how much the improvement was on top of the already predicted improvements.
For more sports opinions check out my site: www.sportsopinionweekly.com
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3 months ago
Great article. I agree. Boston will take the division by storm in the second half.
3 months ago
I don't disagree, but i dont agree either. I know youth can sometimes play a role in a team's downfall, but youth brings many things to the table. These kids are full of energy and most of them are unbelieveably good atheletes, and many of them came up in the same organization, so there is a real sense of team chemistry that you certainly wont find with a team like the yankees. And its not as if the Rays are all rookies, the league has had plenty of time to figure out kasmir, and sheilds was near the top of the league in strikeouts last year. The truth is, they arent riding a good luck streak, this team just straight up has talent, and its years of good scouting and draft picks have finally all come together to make a legitamate contender
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