Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays once again defied expectations and managed to win the Wild Card. After losing Crawford I did wonder if they would have enough to make the playoffs but they proved me wrong. It doesn’t look like they will make many changes during the offseason but they should be an even better team next season with a full season of Moore.

Sorry to find that there’s only Tijani's post in the Rays thread on here, which means there’s not much interest here in my team in the past, but that's fine, I think the little Rays are still the definition of unfashionable despite the fact we have been one of the best teams in baseball for a few years now.

Quite delighted so far with our start, I suppose I have watched 75% of the Rays games so far either live on MLB or highlights, and they look a great young team again, and there’s been some outstanding individual performances, so at 9-7 that’s a good start, but they haven’t yet added up to the sort of record we’d like, Longoria is hitting .339 with 3 home runs and 14 RBI’s, and Joyce, Pena, Scott and Jennings have all started well, Upton is now back too after injury.

And our starting pitching has looked OK so far, I love our rotation, Shields is 3-0 with a 2.76 ERA, and has already pitched right through to the 9th inning twice in 4 starts, Hellickson is 2-0 with 3.26, Nieman, Price and Moore have been less dominant, but the 5 in the rotation are a combined 8-4 with 4 no-decisions, the bullpen have been letting us down and not holding on to leads, though Rodney already has 5 saves. Moving Wade Davis into the bullpen to help out there looks like a great move by Maddon.

All in all a good start to the campaign in the division, with only 0.5 of a game separating the Yankees, Orioles, Blue Jays, and Rays, the Red Sox being the only team adrift, and they look just awful on every single level from what I have seen, Bobby Valentine isn’t going to be around for long unless he can do something to light a fire under them.

It’s going to be a tight race again in the AL East, quite confident that the Rays under Maddon can be right up there through to October again, apart from Kotchman and Damon this is the same roster that won 91 games last year, like Tijani says we really didn’t miss Carl Crawford at all last year, which many people thought they would after we won 96 games with Crawford in the team in 2010.

So, that's how this Rays fan sees it anyway so far, GO RAYS

David Price with a complete game shut out in the 5-0 win against the Angels, power bats at work too with 4 home runs.

I've been very impressed with your start to the season & already have you's down as in the top 4 in the AL along with Texas, Detroit & New York.
It has been a great start for the Rays especially given the tough schedule you guys had to go through early on. Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers & now the Angels, not sure it gets harder than that.

In terms of your guys Longoria looks to be returning to an MVP level and true leader of the ball club. I watched the game last night and was nice to see BJ Upton "go yard" after starting the season on the DL.
You have to love your rotation also with James Shields starting the season dominantly.
Im looking forward to tuning into your game tonight against the Angels on ESPN America at midnight.

Will you be watching?

not seen much of the games other than a few brief highlights but seems like you guys have started well. Always going to be tough in that division, looks like it will be close again this year. There was a lot of love for the Rays rotation in the pre-season stuff I saw and it looks from afar like they've started pretty well.

Yes Tim, the Rays are on a roll at the moment, though credit so far to the Orioles also who are a lot better than anybody expected.

Rays have now won 8 of the last 10, and have a 1-game lead over the Orioles at the top of the AL East.

I've only just seen the highlights when I got up, but last night's 8-4 win in Texas was as good as any of them, especially Evan Longoria who hit a 3 run homer and already now has 18 RBI's.

Boston look like they may have finally steadied the boat and are almost at .500

Strewth....Jays on a bad run. Had such high hopes...

I stayed up to watch the Rays v Mariners game as I'm having a long weekend with the bank holiday, and what a pleasure it is to watch them right now, to finish the first month or so 17-8 in that division is a real achievement, and they look so confident and have great team chemistry, there's no doubt that the Rays can go all the way to October again. I'm most impressed with the 1-2-3 of Shields, Price, and Hellickson who were a combined 12-1 in April, Shields is already 5-0 and leads the AL in wins. We have Oakland at home this weekend, then 10 games against all our AL east rivals, so more of the same would be nice.

I'm quite disappointed to read this story as Beckham is part of the Rays organisation and knowing the strict rules these days he should have known better

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...ws_mlb&c_id=mlb

A real shame - at least it wasn't P.E.D's - Man I hate drugs - The Old AL EAST is looking good at the moment

I don't know if Baltimore are the real deal as they say, but they are still keeping pace with the Rays whilst the Yankees and Red Sox just play .500 baseball, though the Jays are also having a very nice start.

Rays look almost unbeatable right now, 9-1 in our last 10 to go to 19-8, easily the best record in all of baseball. And 13-1 at home, which is just ridiculous.

First Post here: I'm a Rays Fan living in London.

Just hope all our injured players are back after the all star break and the bats come alive or we trade to get one in (bye bye BJ)

Welcome to the forum Scott.

The problem with trading someone is that the player you mentioned has zero trade value. I wouldn't give an empty crisp packet for Upton, he's been terrible since 2008 and he's even worse this year than he was the previous three years.

Welcome to the forum Scott.

I think getting Longoria back is the big thing for the Rays. You guys are still in the race for the AL East and with the 2nd Wild Card you will be in the hunt for a playoff spot all season long.

It is going to be difficult for any to team to get an impact bat with so many teams still in with a good chance of making the playoffs. I don’t see Upton bringing back a lot in a trade but I do wonder if Shields could be traded. A lot of teams would be interested in him and the Rays should be able to get a lot in return for him.