Major League Baseball

We've become used to Rays' phenomenal success, but they shouldn't be taken for granted

Updated May. 1, 2023 3:51 p.m. ET

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Martin Rogers

FOX Sports Insider

The Tampa Bay Rays aren't winning every single game anymore, because that's not how baseball actually works — despite how they made it look for a while.

One of baseball's most frugal teams just had a week where it went only 4-3 (gasp!) and though 23-6 is enough to source envy from every other club in Major League Baseball, it doesn't have the purity of 13-0 or the meaty flex of 20-3.

This is the time, with the turn of a new month and an entirely new look to the upcoming quality of the Rays' schedule, where the soothsayers will sagely nod that all good things must come to an end, then utter other baseball-themed parables that suggest a sharp correction is imminent.

However, while statistical improbability is the best way to illustrate how remarkable Tampa Bay's April on the diamond was, it doesn't tell half the story of a team that's lived the dream since Opening Day and provided exemplary entertainment while doing so.

Kevin Cash's squad is playing hard, having fun, hitting big, bubbling along and doing it all with a flair for the dramatic sent straight from a script writer's table. Even when they lose it is confounding and blink-and-you'll-miss-it, with a rare defeat on Sunday seeing the Chicago White Sox snap a 10-game losing run with a momentous seven-run ninth inning.

Now, amid all the cheeriness, there are some sneering little jibes that have been aimed at the Rays, most of which have been unnecessarily snarky.

The schedule has been absurdly easy, the skeptics say. Tougher times will beget sterner realities. They're not as good as the numbers suggest. They're just good at beating up on last-place teams.

Those assertions have some truth lingering amidst the shade, but it is also not how this month-long stretch that just passed should be remembered.

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The Rays' April should be noted for the way the team attacked the season instead of easing into it. And for its all-round excellence, not least the spectacular batting and fielding of 22-year-old Wander Franco, who is good enough to have convinced the Rays front office to reverse policy and commit $182 million over 11 years to keep him — albeit a bargain rate for the young superstar.

There is probably not a catch in the world worth $182 million, but Franco's bare-handed, over-the-shoulder grab against the Houston Astros a week ago felt like a sizeable chunk of repayment. Go watch it again if you don't believe me.

Meanwhile, Randy Arozarena is on a tear with seven home runs, 28 RBIs and an average of .327 through 28 games and remains one of baseball's most explosively entertaining players, while the pitching has handled some injuries (including a Tyler Glasnow oblique strain and a Jeffrey Springs season-ending elbow issue) with a surprising lack of fuss.

In general, they're just doing things big. The team hit at least one home run in 22 consecutive games for a new season-opening record and, on the heels of the 13-0 start, won 14 straight at home to begin the year. The night before blowing a lead to the White Sox, they ended Chicago pitcher Lance Lynn's no-hitter bid in the most emphatic fashion possible, thumping 10 runs in the seventh to tilt the game on its head.

"It seems like every time Tampa Bay plays, we're breaking records that aren't even records yet," Arozarena told reporters recently. "It just happens every day."

Great, so what next? Well, starting Tuesday is a stretch of matchups every bit as grueling as the April slate was soft. From outmuscling a collection including four cellar-dwelling teams, now comes a portion of the calendar with 29 games against squads with a combined mark of 133-85, per the Tampa Bay Times.

"I think it's fair to say most seasons there's a point in your schedule that you look up and you really hope you're healthy and you're playing well at that time," manager Cash said. "You could make the argument that this upcoming month could be that time."

First are the surging Pittsburgh Pirates (20-9), followed by the New York Yankees, the red-hot Baltimore Orioles (19-9), before meeting the pinstripes again.

Any Rays success is never complete without an analysis of how little they spend. Their payroll this season is $73.1 million, around a third of the amount averaged by AL East rivals New York, Boston and Toronto.

However, let's be clear about who the Rays are and where they belong. The team has made the postseason every year since 2019, is a consistent winner, and reached the 2020 World Series, falling to the Los Angeles Dodgers in six.

So yes, the numerical heft of the Rays' record is about to be severely tested. This kind of pace would have been highly unfeasible to sustain in any case, let alone against opposition like they have coming.

But the reason to watch the Rays goes beyond peering in to see if a record is to be extended. They're one of the league's most outstanding teams, they carry themselves with a sense of style, and they play baseball with intensity mixed with joy.

They're showing that in a league where money talks, quality speaks even louder.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.

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Tampa Bay Rays

Wander Franco

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Martin Rogers