Tampa Bay Rays Look To Carry Momentum, Resiliency Into Postseason

The Tampa Bay Rays have checked off a number of accomplishments the past couple of weeks.

They clinched a playoff berth, won their first American League East title in 10 years and completed the regular season with the AL’s best record and top seed.

While they already had the division locked up and knew they would be home for this week’s best-of-three wild card series, finishing on top meant something.

“No. 1 seed means you have the best record in the American League and that is pretty special,” said manager Kevin Cash, prior to last Friday’s game against the visiting Phillies, whom they swept in a three-game weekend series to finish the regular season 40-20.

The Rays, who will face Toronto in the wild-card series starting Tuesday afternoon, have accomplished a lot to date and there is no reason to think that they cannot accomplish a lot more. 

Teams do not succeed in the present by living in the past, but a five-game defeat at the hands of the Astros in the American League Division Series last autumn still stings and has at least added a little fuel to the collective fire this time around.

“You accept it, but I don’t know if you ever get over it,” said Cash, whose team concluded the regular season by winning four straight and nine of 11. “You work so hard and you want so much for the players to feel that success and winning would have been pretty special. To get over it? Hopefully, none of us have. You accept it and become better for it.”

The loss left a feeling that those from last year’s team do not want to experience again.

“Coming up short in Game 5 last year I think left a bitter taste in a lot of us,” said Kevin Kiermaier, the longest-tenured member of the Rays. “A lot of us are thinking back a year ago about how much fun we were having and coming up short. We don’t want to feel that feeling again.”

The Rays have not won a postseason series since 2008, the year of the club’s initial playoff berth and when they lost to the Phillies in the World Series.

While there were wild card victories in 2013 and 2019, those seasons, along with 2010 and 2011, were terminated in the ALDS. That’s four losses in as many as many series since the magical ride of ‘08.

Though there is a hump to be hurdled in that regard, this Rays team has busted through many barriers in getting to this point. Since the season started July 24, they have overcome having to place 11 pitchers on the injured list and they lost one for the season, Colin Poche, three days before the opener.

At one point or another Yonny Chirinos, Brendan McKay, who has not played for the Rays this season, Andrew Kittredge, Chaz Roe, Jalen Beeks and Cody Reed joined Poche in being shut down for the season. 

Not that the lineup Cash makes out on a daily basis has been spared. Austin Meadows, Yandy Diaz, Ji-Man Choi and Mike Zunino have all missed significant chunks of the season. Among the quartet only Zunino finished the regular season on the active roster, though Choi and Diaz, both shelved with hamstring injuries, could return for the postseason.

Whether it is rookie Josh Fleming or John Curtiss, who was released by the Phillies’ Triple-A affiliate in the middle of the 2019 season, being called upon to help out the pitching staff or Randy Arozarena joining the team for the season’s final month following a bout with Covid-19 and providing power (seven homers in 59 September at-bats) from the right side of the plate, Cash and his staff continued to push the right buttons.

Proof of that is highlighted in the fact the team went 14-5 in one-run games, won 10 times in their last at-bat and equaled the major league mark set by the 1973 Rangers with 12 pitchers recording at least one save. (That last stat really sticks out given this was a 60-game season.)

Winning remained a priority throughout the weekend series against the Phils even with the top seed locked up.

“We’ve talked about wanting to create momentum,” said Cash following Sunday’s game. “We feel pretty confident we’ve done that with whatever lineup we’ve thrown out, or whatever pitcher has been out there. We just continue to find ways to win.”

The Rays went 6-4 against the Blue Jays this season, including 4-3 at the Trop. Toronto’s lineup, which Blake Snell will face in Game 1, features a crop of outstanding young players, including Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., Cavan Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel, Jr.

“That’s an impressive group, a young group, an energetic group,” said Cash. “We will have our hands full.”

Beginning in 1997, one year before the Rays’ inaugural season, Toronto manager Charlie Montoyo spent 20 years in the Tampa Bay organization. The last four (2015-18) of those seasons he served as manager Kevin Cash’s bench coach.

“Myself and everybody in this organization have so much appreciation for Charlie and his family,” said Cash. “You don’t work here as long as he did and not have a big imprint in such a positive way. He is a great leader, a great manager and all those things. We are excited for him, but we will have to get past that and put our best foot forward starting Tuesday.”