By By Ken Filler | Tampa Bay Sports Journal
ARLINGTON, Texas — The Tampa Bay Rays have reached the part of the schedule that will tell us exactly how good they are.
That is not an overreaction to one ugly night in Texas. It is the reality of September.
The Rays still own the best record in the American League at 83-57. They still lead the Yankees by three games in the American League East. They remain in control of their path to a division title and a first-round postseason bye.
But after Thursday night’s 6-0 loss to the Rangers, there is no avoiding the issue staring them in the face: The offense has gone quiet at precisely the wrong time.
The Rays are 2-3 over their last five games. The Rays have scored 17 runs in that span, but 12 came in their two victories.
In the three losses, they scored six runs combined.
They were held to two runs by the Mets on Monday, then followed Wednesday’s 10-4 loss with a three-hit shutout in Texas.
That is not the kind of offensive trend a team wants to carry into the most demanding portion of its schedule.
Rays’ last five games
● Aug. 30: Rays 5, Padres 4 (11 innings)
● Aug. 31: Mets 3, Rays 2
● Sept. 1: Rays 6, Mets 2
● Sept. 2: Mets 10, Rays 4
● Sept. 3: Rangers 6, Rays 0
The larger sample does not look much better. Over their last 10 games, the Rays are batting .249 with a .309 on-base percentage and a .369 slugging percentage. That works out to a .678 OPS.
They have hit nine home runs and scored 41 times, but the production has been uneven.
There have been good nights. There just have not been enough sustained innings in which Tampa Bay controls the strike zone, creates traffic and forces pitchers to work under pressure.
Thursday was the most troubling example.
Rangers starter Cal Quantrill allowed two hits and two walks in seven scoreless innings. At one point, he retired 14 consecutive Rays.
Tampa Bay advanced a runner as far as second base only three times and matched its season low with three hits.
“He pitched a heck of a ballgame and really didn’t give us much choice but to swing because he was in the strike zone so much,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “We just couldn’t do much with the stuff.”
That is honest, and Quantrill deserves credit. He is now 4-0 with a 1.77 ERA in seven career starts against the Rays. But this is September.
The Rays will see more pitchers with good stuff and fewer opponents willing to give away at-bats, innings, or games.
This is no longer a club trying to convince people it belongs in the postseason race.
The Rays have spent most of the season proving they are one of the American League’s best teams.
Now they have to show their offense can function when the games tighten, and mistakes become more expensive.
Tough opponents are coming one after another.
After the four-game series in Texas, the Rays travel to Atlanta for three games. Then they come home for three against Houston.
The Athletics provide the lone break in a parade of contenders before the Rays close with Boston at home, the Yankees in New York, and Philadelphia on the road.
Think about that finish: Red Sox, Yankees and Phillies, with the final six games away from Tropicana Field.
There is almost no soft landing.
The Rangers entered this series fighting for the final AL wild-card position.
Atlanta owns one of the National League’s best records. Boston remains in the playoff picture.
The Yankees are chasing the Rays for the division.
Philadelphia is headed toward October.
This is less a closing schedule than a postseason rehearsal.
If the Rays hope to finish first in the East, the offense cannot keep asking the pitching staff to be nearly perfect.
The concern is not simply the run total. It is how those runs are being generated.
On Tuesday, the Rays collected 13 hits in a 6-2 victory over the Mets.
Yandy Díaz homered and doubled, and the lineup kept applying pressure.
One night earlier, however, the Rays had nine hits but didn’t score until the eighth inning in a 3-2 loss.
The Rays need Junior Caminero to anchor the middle of the order, but they cannot expect a 22-year-old to carry an entire September lineup.
His 15-game hitting streak ended Wednesday. That was always going to happen.
The answer has to come from the lineup around him.
From Díaz setting the tone, Chandler Simpson creating disruption, Jonathan Aranda driving the baseball, and the bottom half turning the order over.
The Rays enter Friday ranked only 24th in the majors with 144 home runs and 16th with 628 runs.
Caminero has supplied 37 homers and 88 RBIs. That tells two stories at once: how special he has been and how much the Rays need broader production.
Is it time to be concerned? Yes. Panic? No.
There is an important distinction between recognizing a problem and declaring a crisis.
The Rays are 83-57. They have one of baseball’s deepest pitching staffs, a legitimate star in Caminero, and the kind of speed and versatility that can manufacture runs when the home-run swing disappears.
They have also been through this before. After an 18-4 surge, Tampa Bay has gone 9-11 since Aug. 14.
That is a slowdown, not a season collapse. But the Yankees have used it to move within three games, which means the Rays no longer have room to assume the standings will take care of themselves.
The offense must become more consistent now, not two weeks from now, and certainly not after the postseason begins.
This difficult schedule can expose the Rays, or it can sharpen them.
It can turn a few quiet offensive nights into a September slide, or it can force a talented lineup to rediscover the approach that helped build the best record in the American League.
That is what makes the next three weeks so compelling.
The Rays have already done the hard work of becoming a contender. Now comes the harder part: finishing like one.
