Tampa Bay Rays: so far so good

Maybe Boston Red Sox fans got a little too excited too quickly at Tampa Bay’s recent injury woes. With rookie All Star Evan Longoria—who also happens to be the team’s leader in HRs and RBIs as well as their best defensive player—on the shelf with a broken hand, and on-base catalyst Carl Crawford out for the year the Rays have continued to battle. Their Thursday win over Oakland was their 7th win in 9 games and have allowed them to hold serve in their dogfight with the surging Boston Red Sox. While Boston has managed to cut the Rays divisional lead from 4 to 3 games since their blockbuster trade to send Manny Ramirez to Los Angeles, Tampa has shown no sign of collapse.

As has been the case with Tampa’s improbable 2008 transformation from a perennial cellar dweller to the pacesetter in the AL’s most storied division, they’ve received timely contribution from virtually everyone on the roster. The latest to help pick up the slack is veteran 1st baseman Carlos Pena, who’s added 3 HR and 5 RBIs since Longoria has been out of the lineup, including a game winner in the 12th inning of Thursday’s contest.

Tampa will head to Texas for a weekend series against the swooning Rangers. Texas is struggling to stay above the .500 mark as they’ve lost 7 of 10 and are just off a sweep at the hands of the Rays’ rival Boston. The Red Sox, meanwhile, face a tougher test as they head to Toronto to face the gritty Blue Jays. Despite being mired in 4th place behind Boston, Tampa and the New York Yankees, Toronto has played well of late winning 7 of 11. They appear to have found motivation and focus by keeping the struggling Yankees in their crosshairs and enter Friday’s action only 2.5 games behind the “Bronx Bombers”.

The Rays will face a huge challenge next week, however, as they return home to face the AL West leading Los Angeles Angels. Despite all but ending the division race weeks ago (the Halos lead 2nd place Texas by a staggering 15.5 games) LA has continued to play well. Most significantly, they’ve actually performed better on the road than they have at home—they’re 38-21 away from Anaheim which is by far the best away record in Major League Baseball. With Tampa Bay holding the majors’ best home record (45-17, tied with the Chicago Cubs) it should be a series with playoff-like intensity.