My Two Cents: Rays Show Signs of Life With 5-2 Finish to Road Trip

The Tampa Bay Rays are finally starting to get a lot of timely hits from their formerly slumping sluggers, and it capped off a 5-2 end to a road trip with a win over Pauk Skenes and the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday. Are they coming alive for good?

Tampa Bay's Yandy Diaz has been hot in June. He had three hits on Sunday and has a 16-game hitting streak. / Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — This has been a mostly-ugly first half of the baseball season for the Tampa Bay Rays, but they're starting to come to life after winning five of their last seven games on this recent road trip.

All those teams bunched in that tight pack of wild-card contenders in the American League should be concerned. The Rays, who have made the playoffs five years in a row, know what it takes to make the postseason. Every year in the past five, they've had a prolonged hot streak a time or two. They seem primed to do that now. At 38-40, they are just four games out of the final wild-card spot with 84 games to go.

That's a long time.

Beating the Atlanta Braves last Sunday after losing the first two games of the series helped avoid a sweep. And then to win two of three at both Minnesota and Pittsburgh was a big deal. Those are both decent teams — not world-beaters, but decent — and winning 3-1 on Sunday in a game that rookie phenom Paul Skenes started for the Pirates was a big deal. It was easy to pencil that in as a loss before the game started.

This is a different Rays team right now compared to what we saw in April and May. It starts with the bats. Defending AL batting champ Yandy Diaz, left fielder Randy Arozarena and center fielder Jose Siri were all awful those first two months. But they've all hit their stride in June, and that makes this lineup look much more dangerous.

Let's look first at the amazing tranformation of all three:

YANDY DIAZ: Diaz hit just .202 in April with no homers and only six RBIs. He was better in May (.269), but has been on fire in June. He's hitting .341 for the month and has two homers — including one off of Skenes on the first pitch of the game Sunday — and has a 16-game hitting streak. It changes everything for the Rays when their lead-off hitter is doing damage. He also singled in the eighth inning, setting the table for the Rays' two-run rally to win it. There's only been one game all month where he hasn't had a hit. That's exactly what the Rays need from him.

RANDY AROZARENA: The popular Rays left fielder has always been streaky, but he really bottomed out early. He hit just .112 in April and only .178 in May. But he's gotten hot in June, hitting .295 with five doubles, two homers and eight RBIs. Maybe the most telling stat is that he has 11 walks in June, and only 13 strikeouts. He's not chasing like he was, when he struck out 66 times in the first two months. He can wreak havoc with one swing of the bat now.

JOSE SIRI: Siri was hitting just .180 on May 29, and was losing playing time in center field to Jonny DeLuca. It was starting to look like his run in Tampa Bay might be over. But on May 30, he hit two homers in a 6-5 win in 12 innings over Oakland, including one off of Mason Miller to tie the game in the ninth. He hasn't slowed down since, delivering one clutch hit after another in the past three weeks. Since that day, he's hitting .252 with six homers. Throw in a half-dozen great catches for good measure, and he's been a completely different player.

Throw in the fact that they are starting to pitch better too, and that's a good sign. Aaron Civale, who can't ever seem to get deep into games, was brilliant on Sunday. He threw five innings of one-run ball, and then turned it over to the bullpen after only 61 pitches. Kevin Kelly, Garrett Cleavinger, Jason Adam and Pete Fairbanks each threw an inning, and no one gave up a hit. Kelly got the win, Adam a hold and Fairbanks his 11th save. That's how the Rays' bullpen of old used to do it.

Now comes an important homestand, with three games against AL West leader Seattle and three more against a Washington team that's 38-39 and for more competitive than anyone expected this year. The Rays haven't been good at all at home this year, going just 19-23 against a fairly soft schedule.

That needs to change.

During this five-year playoff run, the Rays are a combined 105 games over .500 at Tropicana Field. That's why this year's troubles seem so out of character. This is the perfect week to fix that. It won't be easy, because the Mariners have great starting pitching. They don't hit much, so expect a lot of tight, low-scoring games. Don't be surprised if games are decided by the bullpens and that one clutch hit late.

I'm still not sure how much faith to have in this Rays team, but they sure look better now than they did in April and May. They started to get hot this week — 5-2 on the road is always great — but now they need to keep it up.

The middle of the AL is pretty mediocre, and the Rays fit right in. But a hot streak over the next two or three weeks might change their perception in a hurry.

And they'd be right back in the playoff conversation.

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• ROSARIO BEANED: Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Jared Jones nailed Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Amed Rosario in the face with a 100 mile-per-hour fastball Saturday afternoon. CLICK HERE

• SIRI'S DEFENSIVE GEM: The Tampa Bay Rays hung on to record a second consecutive extra-inning victory over the Minnesota Twins on Thursday, thanks in large part to Jose Siri's cannon in the outfield. CLICK HERE

• AROZARENA FEELS BETTER: The Tampa Bay Rays didn't have Randy Arozarena in their starting lineup the past two games due to right hamstring tightness, but the left fielder is batting second against the Chicago Cubs on Thursday. CLICK HERE