Looking Backward While Moving Forward: Rays Drop Seventh Straight Behind Lack of Offense

Do you remember when the Rays would swarm the opposing pitcher? You know, back in the olden days of last year, when the offense would knock the pitcher off his game early on — not allowing him to get comfortable. Those sure were the good old days. I certainly would have killed for that approach at the plate last night. Tampa Bay fell to their Florida rivals by a 3-1 margin in Miami. The Marlins improved to 21-11 at home (29-28 overall), while the Rays fell even further back in the rankings. The good guys have now dropped seven consecutive games, scoring all of 17 runs in the process. This isn’t good, and yes…this sucks.

Looking Backward While Moving Forward: A Look at the Previous Month of Rays Baseball (May)

The Tampa Bay Rays concluded a 12-17 month of May with a 7-1 loss in Boston, Saturday. It’s safe to say this isn’t what was hoped for by anyone, following their 11-16 April. This may be an oversimplification of things, but at 23-33 the Rays need to start playing better baseball, plain and simple. To reference things a bit, Tampa Bay was 30-24 after the first two months of play last season.

Looking Backward While Moving Forward: Rays Fall 3-2 In Extra Innings

In the fifth, Yunel Escobar led things off with a hard hit double of the Monster. Jose Molina moved Escobar to third on a beautifully executed bunt up the right side. If I may, Molina looked like he was setting up camp as he slowly lumbered up the first base line — subsequently getting tagged out halfway between home and first. I’ve seen Molina run slow before, but Christ! J-Mo looked like he ran out of gas two steps out of the batters box.

Looking Backward While Moving Forward: Rays Drop Third Straight, 3-2

The Tampa Bay Rays dropped the final game against the Toronto Blue Jays by a score of 3-2, Wednesday night. Despite a disastrous two-run first inning, Chris Archer put things together, posting five consecutive innings of scoreless ball. Tampa Bay fell back to eight games under .500 thanks to the loss (and the series sweep). The Rays will resume play Friday in Boston, where they’ll start a three-game weekend series against the Red Sox. Having lost almost all they gained prior to this, their most recent series, the Rays will try to bury the Red Sox once again.

Looking Backward While Moving Forward: Rays Drop Second Straight, 9-6

The Rays dropped their second consecutive game to the Toronto Blue Jays Tuesday, this time by a score of 9-6, in what could be described as a slugfest by both teams. It just so happens that the Blue Jays, who are playing with a metric butt-ton of confidence at the moment (the series is in Canada after all), out slugged the Rays. Alex Cobb got the start and watched as his scoreless steak came to pass at 25-1/3 innings (just two innings shy of the club record of 27-1/3 innings set by JP Howell in 2012), after the righty gave up back-to-back homers for the first time in his career — relinquishing six runs on nine hits overall. For only only the fifth time in 27 starts, Cobb gave up up more than three runs.