Rays Eliminated From Playoff Chase
The Tampa Bay Rays are done. Despite winning 11 of their last 12 games they have been eliminated. The Oakland A’s clinched the final playoff spot by beating the Texas Rangers on Monday Night, knocking the Rays out of the race.
We could look at this one of two ways. We can say it is amazing that with their best players playing in Evan Longoria playing in only 72 games (and about 45 of those on a gimpy leg) it is astonishing that they made it to 160 games before being knocked out. Or we can say that a team that was 26th of 30 teams in batting average and 25th of 30 teams in fielding percentage getting to game 160 was amazing.
But we can also ask how a team with the top two Cy Young candidates in David Price and Fernando Rodney, and a third who could wind up with 16 wins in James Shields didn’t even make the playoffs. The Rays pitching staff was one of the best in the history of baseball this year. They set the American League record for strikeouts by a team. Every one of their starters had an ERA under 4.00. If Jeremy Hellickson wins tomorrow, all five will finish in double figures for wins.
The Rays bullpen was practically un-hittable. Rodney is about to top Dennis Eckersley‘s .061 ERA from his 1990 season when he won the Cy Young. Rodney has converted 47 of 49 save opportunities. One of those blown saves was on unearned runs. He gave up a walk-off home run in May to the Boston Red Sox and that has been it. So how did they miss the playoffs?
Two things killed them. One was the injuries. Sam Fuld, Jeff Niemann, Luke Scott, Matt Joyce, Desmond Jennings and Longoria all missed some time on the disabled list. Longoria, Fuld and Niemann missed most of the season. The other was the inability to win close games. But wait? How can you say that when you have a closer to converts every save chance? At some point though, a team has to come back and pull out a few games. The Rays couldn’t do that. Their record in one run games was not good at all. Their record in extra inning games was also bad. These are two areas where the Baltimore Orioles have excelled. In many cases they did so at the Rays expense.
Before their most recent 11 of 12 game run, the Rays lost 7 of 8 to put themselves on the brink of elimination. the first three games of that stretch were in Baltimore. The second and third games of that series were played on a Wednesday night and a Thursday afternoon. In both of those games, the Orioles won 3-2 on walk off hits. In both of them the Rays scored first, got down 2-1 then tied the game, only to lose it. The Thursday game went 15 innings. So how did a team with a run differential for the season of +9 beat out a teams at +118? That’s how.
