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Rays Look Like More Than A One-Hit Wonder

Tribune file photo by CHRIS URSO (2008)

The Rays had success last season with few career years by their players, including reliever Troy Percival, who spent lots of time on the DL.

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 13, 2009

Updated: 02/13/2009 08:43 am

The big stories in baseball the last couple of months have happened in places other than the Bay area, which only shows that while a lot has changed for the Rays, some things never will.

The Yankees still make more headlines for spending money and, ahem, "other" things than they do for playing baseball. The Red Sox will forever be seen as the only team that needs to be concerned about what happens in the Bronx.

But as pitchers and catchers begin to report all over this land and we finally move beyond talk of A-Roid and congressional hearings, one thing is indisputable:

The Tampa Bay Rays are the defending American League champions, and they might just be a better team this season than they were a year ago.

Adding Pat Burrell to the middle of the lineup should be huge. This team will score runs, perhaps in bunches, and we already know they can pitch and catch.

That doesn't mean they'll win the AL East again, nor does it even mean they'll be in the playoffs. You don't even want to talk about winning 97 games again because that's so far out in the future that it's best just to keep it there and go back to Joe Maddon's 9=8 mantra: one game at a time, that sort of thing.

If teams won championships on paper, the Yankees would have retired the World Series trophy long ago. Still, it's hard not to look at what's going on with the Rays and get lost in the possibilities. On paper, the Rays are ascending.

Don't Anger The Gods

While giving a nod to the baseball gods and acknowledging their power to inflict injury or Steve Blass disease at their whim, the Rays' starting rotation could be the deepest in the game.

That requires a bit of faith, but, hey, it's spring. It's OK to assume David Price will be every bit as good as he looked when he buzz-sawed through the postseason in a relief role. The Yankees have bigger names – in the case of C.C. Sabathia, literally bigger – but the Rays were amazingly solid from 1-through-5 last year in the rotation.

Speaking of the Yankees, everyone will be gaga over Sabathia and his hefty contract, but all he really does is replace (maybe) the 20 wins they lost when Mike Mussina retired. A.J. Burnett, another big-ticket signee, has been known to break down physically. But they do have Chien-Ming Wang back; he missed the last 3 1/2 months of the season after sustaining a foot injury while running the bases in an interleague game (see gods, baseball).

The thing I like best about the Rays is how no one – save, arguably, for Dioner Navarro – had a career year in 2008. Players like B.J. Upton, Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria, Troy Percival, Jason Bartlett and Carl Crawford all had lengthy stays on the disabled list. They won because they played defense and because the bullpen was significantly better overall than ever before.

The big question is how they handle success. We saw how Longoria struggled in the postseason, particularly the World Series. Upton is already slowed while recovering from shoulder surgery. We have no idea what to expect from Percival. And remember what happened last spring, when Scott Kazmir grabbed his elbow on the first day.

Rays Can Expect 'A' Game

It's too soon to say this season will be as magical as the last one for the Rays. They had a different hero every night.

If it wasn't Gabe Gross hitting clutch home runs, it was Bartlett making impossible catches to save games or Grant Balfour throwing flames after Percival got hurt. Or it was a call-up like Dan Johnson, coming off a plane from Durham to hit a game-tying home run off Jonathan Papelbon and help the Rays to a 5-4 win of the Red Sox. Or it was a no-name like Fernando Perez coming from nowhere to make play after play. That's why the anticipation for this team has never been higher.

You'd expect bigger crowds at the Trop this season, and a bigger bull's-eye on this team when it goes on the road. The Rays will get everybody's 'A' game this year.

No sport can humble a soul like baseball, but as the Rays report for work this weekend in Port Charlotte, they do so knowing they're in the picture every bit as much as the Yankees, Red Sox or anyone else.

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