Tampa Bay, both as a team and community, should have its head held high this off-season.
Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays defied all conventions by having a remarkable turn-around this year. The squad won 97 games, took the AL East title and made it to the World Series.
Bear in mind that performance came from a squad that hadn’t had a winning season until now and were in the cellar last year with just 66 wins. In fact their 66-96 mark was the worst in all of baseball.
Coming into this season experts did expect an improvement with the Rays. They argued Carlos Pena would be good again, B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford would continue to hit and run well and the pitching, primarily James Shields and Scott Kazmir, would be good for parts of the game.
However many thought an excess of faults would hinder Tampa Bay. The bullpen was awful, blowing many leads and as a team they had a 5.53 ERA, the highest in baseball. Moreover they were always beat up on by division foes Boston and New York.
Then the Rays decided to change things up at the start of this year. Their team name, which was the Devil Rays for about a decade, changed along with their team uniforms.
During the off-season the payroll went up from US$24 million to $43 million. From there the team signed key players from last year (like Troy Percival), promoted important players to the big leagues such as Evan Longoria and David Price and traded for key pieces this year.
Some of the biggest moves were the trading of Delmon Young (along with two other players) to Minnesota for pitcher Matt Garza and shortstop Jason Bartlett and signing free agent outfielder Cliff Floyd.
The Rays’ new attitude shone through from spring training when they won nearly all of their games. Some argue Tampa’s rallying cry for the season would be a confrontation that happened between the team and the Yankees.
By the end of the first month of the regular season the club would have a winning record and never looked back.
Throughout the course of the season their determination to win and stop being bullied by their division rivals came through in an intriguing rivalry with the Red Sox. Every game was heated, competitive and had implications on the standings.
The big key for Tampa’s improvement was pitching, specifically in the bullpen. Tampa would end the year third in team ERA with a 3.82 mark. The trio of Grant Balfour, J.P. Howell and Dan Wheeler formed the nucleus of an effective relief corps that held leads well.
Their play allowed the starting rotation to compile a combined record of 64-45 while averaging around 95 pitches per start.
Though the Cubs dominance may have grabbed headlines all season the feel-good story of the year was the rise of the Rays.
As a graduate of the University of Tampa I have first-hand knowledge of the failings of the Rays and their reception in the Tampa area.
It’s refreshing to see the change and hopefully the community will ditch its apathy to them.
Ultimately Tampa may have to wait a little longer to boast having champions in three sports but at least now the area can truly say it has three professional teams, instead of the old joke of two and a half.
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