ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – It seems remarkable a team that did not have a starting pitcher with more than five wins until its 96th game, is hitting .223 with runners in scoring position to rank next-to-last in MLB and has four players with at least 160 plate appearances hitting no higher than .203 – and one with 93 trips to the plate hitting .082 – enters the post-all-star break portion of the schedule at .500 and 5.5 games out of the third and final wild-card spot.
Such is the case with the 2024 Tampa Bay Rays who seemingly define .500. They are 48-48 after 96 games, 27-27 at Tropicana Field, 21-21 on the road, 31-31 on turf and 17-17 on grass. Oh, they are 6-6 in July and have been at .500 on 21 occasions.
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“We’ve done some good things and we’ve done some things that are not so good,” said manager Kevin Cash prior to last Sunday’s game against Cleveland. “I like the way that we have played here in the last month. We are a better version of ourselves right now.”
The Rays are hanging around thanks to winning seven of their last eight series. That is something that will be put to the test at Yankee Stadium on Friday night when the schedule resumes following a four-day all-star break. The Rays will play four games in the Bronx before traveling to Toronto for a three-game set with the Blue Jays. Safe to say that things could look quite different, one way or the other, by the time they return home to play Cincinnati next Friday. That includes the roster.
Though the Rays have done well to win as many series as they have recently, and are 14-10 in that stretch, what has been missing is something along the lines of, say, a seven-game win streak or winning 10 of 12. That’s what Boston and Houston have done recently and why they, along with Kansas City, are ahead of the Rays in the wild-card chase. The Red Sox hold down the third spot with the Royals and Astros in between them and the Rays.
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After the Rays lost six of seven on the road to the White Sox and Brewers at the end of April, they returned to the Trop and swept a three-game series from the Mets and took the first two of three games against the White Sox for five-game win streak, the longest of the season. A four-game win streak in the middle of May lifted the Rays to three games over .500, the team’s high-water mark this year.
Are the Rays capable of going on a run they will likely have to on in order to make the postseason for a sixth straight year? They have not done anything to indicate that they can.
That is not to say they will not. Hope is on the mound with Taj Bradley enjoying the best run of his brief career, Ryan Pepiot having rediscovered his changeup and the return of Shane Baz to the rotation.
On the flipside, there has been little margin for error among the pitchers thanks to an offense that has sputtered all season and heads into the Bronx having scored three or less runs in eight of the last 11 games.
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