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.
Hmph.
As I did at the end of April, below is a comparison of the pitching and offense in May of this season, with that of the season prior. Some things are pleasantly surprising, while others…not so much.
First off, we saw the return of Alex Cobb from the DL, lending some stability to the starting rotation. Heath Bell was released from his contract after only 17-1/3 innings of work, while Brandon Gomes was optioned back to Triple-A Durham on the heels of a five game stretch where he relinquished four homers and six runs. The month ended with the additions of Ryan Hanigan, Brandon Guyer, and Wil Myers to the DL. We also can’t forget about the month ending, five game losing streak.
The numbers speak for themselves:
The pitchers (starting and relief combined) gave up fewer runs last month than they had in May of 2013 — 127 R (114 ER) vs. 139 R (127 ER). Yet, their ahem…winning deficiency extends from an unproductive offense.
The offensive numbers are down across the board in all the areas they shouldn’t be. Because of it, their run production is also down. Consider that Tampa Bay scored 61 fewer runs last month than they had the year prior. That is, they scored 105 runs (or an average of 3.62 runs per game) compared to 166 runs (or an average of 5.92 runs per game) — a differential of runs scored vs. runs allowed of -.76 this season, and almost +1 at this point the year prior. It’s simple really; if the Rays are going to relinquish — on average — just over four runs per game, they need to score more than 3.62 runs.
It’s well and great that David DeJesus, Sean Rodriguez, and Brandon Guyer led the team in slugging percentage in the month of May. However Evan Longoria, Wil Myers, James Loney, and Ben Zobrist are the ones who were expected to carry the team, which they didn’t last month. On the bright side, the Rays win percentage increased by 29 points from April to May. Unfortunately, their Pythagorean Expectation dropped by 22 points, from .475 to .453. That 22 point drop was directly proportional to the lack of offensive production. In short, from here on out, the big boppers on the roster need to come through if the team is going to put together a solid four months of baseball.