The Way Not To Panic About the Tampa Bay Rays

The Tampa Bay Rays are playing extremely badly. In fact, they are playing worse than they have played in years. So far this year, they have had a winning percentage of .407 in April (plus one March game) and .414 in May. They haven’t had a winning percentage that low in a month since missing the playoffs in 2009. The Rays are surely better than this–or at least they will be if they hold onto their trade chips–but we are past the point where we can say “it’s early, everything is going to be fine.” The Rays are playing horrifically and it will take nothing short of a miracle to overcome this, right? That is probably true, but if you want to stay optimistic, here is the way to do it.

If you combine the Rays’ April record from 2013 and their record from July 31st to September 11th of last year, you get a 26-37 record, a .413 winning percentage. That is a winning percentage just ahead of their .405 mark right now in a larger sample size. The Rays have been this bad before–they just never strung it together like this. Maybe this is the Rays being a bad team, or maybe this is them getting their struggles out of the way early. They are dealing with a lot of injuries and several of their stars are not playing up to their ability. The Rays are going to have more success than this, and when it starts, we will have to see how long it lasts. They will have bad games, but if May is their last bad month, they could be just fine when the year is through.