Is Tampa Bay out of Gas?
Getting off to a good start can be good and bad for a team. On the positive side, it can get your team off to a nice lead in your division or conference so that you can rest your superstars down the stretch. That in itself can be bad since you risk your team getting out of sync when it comes time for the postseason. You also risk having your team peak too early and play their best ball and then fall down when they need to be turning it on in the postseason.
On the flip side of that, getting off to a slow start can give you more time to develop and gel as a team. You stand to have a better chance of peaking at the right time, as the playoffs near, rather than during the regular season. However, at the same time if you start winning too late no matter how well you play you may have to count on others losing in order to get into the post season. You also stand the risk of having too many players tired and hurt when you need them the most in the playoffs (just ask the Cincinnati Bengals).
The Tampa Bay Rays were the hottest team in baseball for most of the season. At one point they had a six game lead on the defending world champions. They were winning just as much, if not more, on the road as they were at home. Tampa Bay appeared to be a team possessed and determined to win the AL East.
However, the wheels seem to have come off for the young franchise from South Florida. The trick now will be figuring out whether they can get them back on.
The AL East
For a while the AL East was looking to be the most competitive division in the league. The Rays stood on top with a few games on the New York Yankees who were just in front of the Boston Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays (who traded 3rd and 4th place in the division back and forth). Tampa Bay was easily the best team in the league and the rest of the division except for the Orioles were not far behind.
Fast forward to the 77th game point in the season and the landscape looks a little different. The Yankees have ascended to a place they are quite familiar with, the top of the division. Boston has slid into 2nd, a game behind the world champions and Tampa Bay has fallen two games back into 3rd. Toronto is still conceivably in the hunt, but an eight game deficit in this division is likely to be too much to make up.
What happened to the Rays?
It very well could be that the Rays are running out of gas at the midway point of the season (which would likely have them looking forward to the All-Star break).
In the first month of the season, the Rays were hot. Their offense was clicking on all cylinders and the pitching staff was proving to be quite dangerous to opposing batters. Thirteen of their wins in April came with the team scoring at least six runs; four with 10 or more runs. Nine times they held opponents to two runs or less as well. They ended up being 18-7 on the month.
Fast forward to June and it's a whole different story. Overall they were 11-14, their first losing month of the season (in May they were 17-12). Thirteen times they scored three or fewer runs with ten of those games ending in a loss. When the offense was effective, the pitching was not always there to help out. In four of their losses they allowed the opposition to score five or more runs including an 11 run effort by the Red Sox on the 26th.
The goods thing for the Rays is that the team has yet to hit the midway point. There is plenty of time for them to get hot when it still counts towards the end of the season.
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