Baseball Is Just a Game for These Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays’ success has not precisely flown underneath the radar, what with a record-tying 13-game win streak to start the season, the franchise’s longest profitable streak in its 26-year historical past. Over the course of April, they rattled off one other six-game profitable streak and prolonged their opening house win streak to a trendy main league-record 14. After taking the primary two video games of a house collection in opposition to the unexpectedly harmful Pirates, Tampa has discovered itself 4 video games forward of baseball’s next-best crew at 25–6 — an unbelievable .806 profitable share — together with far and away the league’s greatest run differential at +113, good for a margin of +3.6 runs per recreation. And the Rays are enjoying with the playful swagger of a crew that is aware of simply how good it’s.

For a bit context on what the Rays have achieved to date: their 23 wins by means of April had been two greater than every other crew within the Modern Era (since 1901) earlier than May — an accolade helped by trendy scheduling, however spectacular nonetheless. On a share foundation, their .793 clip was the best pre-May profitable share for the reason that 2001 Mariners went 20–5 (.800) to kick off their record-setting 116-win marketing campaign. In the Modern Era, simply 5 groups have managed larger profitable percentages in March and April in not less than 20 video games.

Winning 25 video games in any 31-game stretch is fairly spectacular in its personal proper; simply three groups managed such a stretch in 2022, and solely two others had carried out so within the 4 prior seasons. But few golf equipment have ever come out of the gates that quick. The 2023 Rays are simply the thirteenth crew since 1901 to win as many as 25 of their first 31 video games and simply the third within the final 65 seasons. For what little it’s price given the extraordinarily totally different eras and playoff codecs, 10 of the earlier 12 went on to play within the World Series, with eight profitable. There’s a protracted street between now and October, however the Rays are placing themselves amongst some fairly good firm to start out:

Scheduling has once more lent a slight hand, to be honest. Despite MLB’s extra balanced schedule unveiled this season, the Rays have a harder-than-average schedule due to their spot in the one division with 5 true playoff hopefuls in 2023. But a lot of that problem nonetheless awaits; the Rays swept the Red Sox in a four-game collection and dropped a three-game set in Toronto to start out 5–2 in opposition to the AL East. Their solely different collection loss has come in opposition to the defending champion Astros; in the meantime, they’ve gone an absurd 17–2 in opposition to the Tigers, Nationals, A’s, Reds, and White Sox — 5 of the underside seven groups within the league by FanGraphs’ projected standings. Tampa’s rest-of-season power of schedule rose from .504 to .509 on May 1, matching the Orioles for the biggest improve over that point. This month will probably be a authentic take a look at, that includes collection with the Yankees (twice), Orioles, Mets, Brewers, Blue Jays, Dodgers, and Cubs.

Still, the show of expertise thus far has been spectacular on either side of the ball. Through April, the Rays slashed .281/.351/.528 with a .376 wOBA in over 1,100 PA, or roughly what Austin Riley hit final season when he ranked eighth within the majors with a .377 wOBA. Their 61 house runs earlier than May set a brand new MLB document. They outpaced the remainder of the league in nearly each stat, main the next-best crew by 14 house runs, 29 factors in wOBA, 29 factors in wRC+, and a outstanding 79 factors in slugging. The final crew to slug larger by means of the opening month was the 2001 Rockies in what was not solely a vastly totally different hitting atmosphere, but additionally one boosted by Colorado enjoying 15 of its 24 video games that April a mile excessive within the sky.

Heading into May, Tampa Bay had a 148 wRC+ as a crew. That’s a lineup stuffed with 2022 Julio Rodriguezes. To be practically 50% higher than league common is a wild degree of lapping the competitors; the next-best crew was Texas at 119. In over 20 seasons of plus-stats from the beginning of the season to the tip of April, no crew has been inside 10 factors of that mark:

To hit that nicely, it has to come back from everywhere in the lineup. Yandy Díaz entered May rating third amongst main league qualifiers with a 185 wRC+. Randy Arozarena was seventh at 173, Wander Franco was seventeenth at 156, and Brandon Lowe was thirtieth at 142. Among these with too few plate appearances to qualify, Josh Lowe led the crew with a 191 mark in 83 PA, Harold Ramírez had a 186 mark in 81, Taylor Walls posted a 175 clip in 73 PA, and Luke Raley recorded a 150 mark in 70. In Tampa, 14 hitters got here to the plate earlier than May 1; 11 had been above league common on the dish.

The Rays’ pitching workers has additionally been among the many league’s greatest. They lead baseball with a 2.96 ERA, rating third with a 3.56 FIP and seventh with a 4.06 xFIP, and have given up simply 20 house runs — lower than a 3rd of what the offense has hit. Shane McClanahan and Drew Rasmussen have regarded notably sturdy within the early goings, as did Jeffrey Springs, who had allowed only one run on 4 hits over his first three begins earlier than struggling a season-ending elbow damage.

Springs is hardly the one Tampa Bay arm to get bit by the damage bug this spring, becoming a member of Shane Baz and Andrew Kittredge on an already crowded Tommy John restoration checklist. Tyler Glasnow remains to be recovering from his spring indirect pressure, and newcomer Zach Eflin already served a stint on the IL with a again concern. Shawn Armstrong continues to take care of a lingering neck drawback that emerged earlier than Spring Training. Pete Fairbanks and Josh Fleming simply went down within the final week. The depth will proceed to be examined, however the Rays, who added righties Chase Anderson and Javy Guerra through commerce in current days, nonetheless have an enviable cadre of succesful pitchers, and Kevin Cash will probably be damned if he can’t patch collectively 9 stable innings out of that group on any given day.

For enjoyable, let’s see what that kind of two-way success seems to be like in comparison with the sphere in that first month-plus main into May. See when you can spot the Rays, with their league-best .376 wOBA and .274 wOBA in opposition to:

Here’s that very same chart with 21 seasons price of crew efficiency:

That’s some severe separation from the competitors. No different crew in that point has posted a wOBA over .365 and allowed a wOBA of lower than .290.

The “it’s April” caveat we’ve been dutifully together with in every of our items at FanGraphs lastly doesn’t apply, however hey, it’s May. It’s nonetheless early, and regression is bound to come back for these Rays. But my colleague Dan Szymborski tweeted final week a couple of phenomenon that applies right here, too: the concept of “banked” wins and losses. Just as Dan identified how the White Sox have banked sufficient losses to make their street forward notably exhausting, the Rays are 1 / 4 of the way in which to 100 wins in underneath one-fifth of the season, and no regression to the imply can take these wins again. If the Rays, who’ve performed at an absurd 131-win tempo to date, play at a 95-win tempo the remainder of the way in which, they’ll end with 102 wins and, in all probability, the AL East crown; at simply an 85-win tempo, they’ll nonetheless find yourself with 94 wins and an virtually sure playoff spot.

As Boston Bruins followers would inform you — or Dodgers followers, for that matter — dominating the common season will solely get you to date; dominating April, even much less. But ours is a sport during which we notably like to acknowledge excellence by placing it within the context of historical past, and to cease and benefit from the utterly distinctive earlier than the regression demons come and make it fade into the merely nice. As far as that observe goes, the 2023 Rays are a marvel.