My Two Cents: Rays' Season Ends Just As We Feared It Would
CLEVELAND, Ohio — We would watch the one-run losses and be concerned, but then a 10-run game would show up and we'd have hope.
That was the daily drama with the Tampa Bay Rays this season.
They had enough pitching to do some big things, despite injuries from Day 1 with the starting rotation and all year long with a loaded bullpen full of interchangeable parts.
But could they hit enough to be dangerous? That was always the cloud that hovered over this team. Could they show it often enough to make us not worry? Could we have ''Playoff Randy'' and ''Barreled Ramirez'' and "Wanderful Franco'' on a regular basis? Could we have Yandy Diaz causing problems at the top of the order or get production from the bottom half of the lineup or the bench?
The answer, sadly, was no.
Their hitters, practically from top to bottom in the lineup, went into a funk in mid-September and never got out of it. They snuck in to the new sixth and final playoff spot in the American League, thanks more to late-season collapses from Baltimore, Chicago and Minnesota than any great baseball their part. They finished 86-76, a 14-game drop-off from a year ago, three games clear of the rapidly improving Orioles.
But when push came to shove in the postseason, they were brutal. Postseason baseball should never be unwatchable, but when Rays hitters were in the batter's box on Friday and Saturday, literally nothing happened.
They got swept out of the playoffs quickly, losing 2-1 on Friday when they only had three hits and 1-0 in 15 innings on Saturday in the longest scoreless game in postseason history. They had six hits, a 6-for-49 day that equates to a .122 batting average that was — stunningly and amazingly – actually better than Friday, when they hit .103 after going 3-for-29.
I've been going back and forth with readers when the Rays started cruising into the postseason after clinching a spot in Houston with five games to go. They scored seven runs that night — six off of Framber Valdez, one of the best pitchers in baseball. That was a week after they scored 10 runs on back-to-back nights against Toronto, another playoff team.
My point was that a handful of regular season games isn't a barometer for what happens in the playoffs, good or bad. There was no guarantee they could explode for 10, nor was there any certainty they'd get blanked inning after inning.
We talked about their ability to flip the switch. Man, that so didn't happen. The only run all weekend came on a Jose Siri home run in the sixth inning of Game 1, but then he turned around and struck out five times on Saturday. Isaac Paredes had a hit each day, two harmless singles. Harold Ramirez, who had the third hit on Friday, went 0-for-6 too on Saturday.
It was all so, so bad.
A team that's normally cognizant about making contact on their good days, especially with two strikes, was suddenly swinging from their heels, wildly chasing well-placed breaking balls out of the zone. Rays manager Kevin Cash said ''guys were trying to do too much.''
But sometimes trying to do to much is taking a ball the other way for a single, or shooting a line drive through a hole. It's not about trying to hit a ball 500 feet and wondering what your exit velocity might be.
Having a ''sound approach'' and ''trying too hard'' are two dramatically different things. That's why you strike out 29 times in two days, including 20 times on Saturday.
"There was just too much, you know, looking for the three-run homer with nobody on base,'' Cash said. "When you take that mindset against good pitchers, they can kind of sit you down.''
Guardians starters Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie did just that, as did a parade of Cleveland relievers. They kept the Rays hitters off-balance, and the few times they did threaten, they got big strikeouts.
What was especially disappointing was the top of the Rays' order, which certainly carries this team. Leadoff hitter Yandy Diaz was 0-for-10 against his former team, striking out four times without drawing a single walk. Wander Franco was 1-for-9 with two strikeouts and Randy Arozarena, who has a brilliant postseason resume, was 1-for-9 with five strikeouts. Cleanup hitter Harold Ramirez, as we mentioned, was 1-for-10.
That's a grand total of 3-for-38. That's an .079 average when the Rays were hoping for more like a .379 average. That's also a lot of at-bats in two days, but it was also a lot of opportunity.
And they wasted it.
“It was tough. We were out there with our tongues out, tired, but we tried to do everything we could to maintain the game as it was,” shortstop Wander Franco said through interpreter Manny Navarro about the long scoreless drought for both teams on Saturday. “We did our part on defense, and we just weren't able to score.”
Cash put faith in a few others who let him down, too. Ji-Man Choi is a perfect example, He was brutal during the second half of the season and probably didn't even deserve to be on the postseason roster if it wasn't for a hot final week of the season. He started both days, and went 0-for-5.
Taylor Walls started for defensive purposes on Friday — and made an error while going 0-for-2 at the plate. On Saturday, Cash pinch-hit him when the Rays really needed to get a bunt down, and Walls failed. He did have a hit late in Saturday's game, but he also struck out twice.
This was a total team failure, without question. It was a collective mess, and no one is immune from blame.
We always feared this could happen, and it turned out to be true. It was sad, too, because the Rays' pitching was so incredibly good. In 24 innings, all the Guardians could muster was a two-run Jose Ramirez off of Shane McClanahan on Friday and Oscar Gonzalez's walk-off against Corey Kluber in the 15th.
That was it.
And now it is it. Even though the Rays were the last team in the playoffs, they still had high aspirations that they could go far this year, mostly because of their pitching. They felt like they could keep Cleveland in check, and they did. They also felt they could beat the New York Yankees in the next round.
Instead, it's two and out. It's the first time in Rays playoff history that they got swept in a series. And 2022, a year riddled with high-profile injuries to Kevin Kiermaier, Mike Zunino and Brandon Lowe, ended in disappointment.
The Rays can turn to 2023 knowing full well that they are a playoff team again. It will start with a best-in-the-game rotation of Glasnow, McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs, and a boatload of quality bullpen arms already under team control.
There are plenty of solid pieces in this lineup, and Franco is going to be a star. But the Rays need more power, and they need guys on base more often. It's going to be interesting to see how aggressive the front office is in making upgrades, especially at catcher and first base.
This is still a very good team, one with enormous potential.
But we'll still have some fears. Can they put them to rest?
Tom Brew is the publisher of Inside The Rays, and has been with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation network for three years. He is an award-winning writer and editor who has spent most of his four-decade career at the Tampa Bay Times, Indianapolis Star and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He has written four books.