By Joey Lachman
(Published 4/6/2023)
(Randy Arozarena striking his signature pose)
ST. PETERSBURG- Six games down and 156 to go, baseball is back! The Rays opened the season’s first week with back-to-back series sweeps of the Detroit Tigers and the Washington Nationals. Tampa Bay won all six games by four or more runs, a start not seen since the 19th century when the St. Louis Maroons started the 1884 season with 13 such victories in a row.
It has been a familiar formula for the Rays to start the 2023 season getting outstanding pitching from their starters and bullpen to go along with surehanded defensive play. They have also torn the cover off the baseball at the plate to start the year, placing in the top five in team OPS(on-base plus slug percentage), Home runs and RBIs (runs batted in).
Series #1 Rays Vs Tigers
The Rays opened the new season at Tropicana Field with a set against the Tigers, where they would take all three games from Detroit. The pitching was sublime, holding the Tigers hitters to three runs and 14 hits across the three-game set. Each of the Rays starters seemed to try and outdo the one from the night before. The best of those performances belonged to the left-hander Jeffery Springs who blanked the Tigers for six innings, striking out 12 and offering the first “no-hit bid” of the young season. Springs, who signed a four-year, $31 million contract extension this off-season and looks to be worth every penny. Another one of those off-season signings is Zach “Led Zepplin” Eflin who built the Tigers hitters a stairway back to the dugout, retiring 14 of the 18 hitters he faced in the 12-2 win against Detroit Saturday.
“From Day 1 of Spring Training, we've talked really highly about our starting pitching for good reason,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “It's a long season, but I don't think we could have set a better tone than these first three days.”
The Ray's bats have managed to stay hot through spring as they continue their hitting clinic from March into April. In the first series of the year Tampa Bay plated 21 runs on 27 hits with four home runs. This trend was evident to anyone who watched the Rays closely this spring as they crushed 41 home runs, seventh in the league this spring. The 22-year-old switch-hitting shortstop Wander Franco has come out of the gates crushing the ball going 7-11 in the first series with a home run and three doubles while playing elite defense. Ray's fans hope this can be the season where Franco can stay on the field and put together the MVP-like season his talents are capable of.
(Jose Siri (right) and Wander Franco (left) celebrate Siri’s opening day home run)
“Thank god for this opportunity, it was great to be able to play well for the fans and hit a home run, and glad I was able to do it on opening day,” Franco said through the Rays interpreter Manny Navarro.
Before the wrap-up game on Sunday, the ball club held its grand opening of the team Hall of Fame. The club inducted a “true baseball legend” Don Zimmer, an MLB Hall of Famer Wade Boggs and a team legend Carl Crawford. Over 66 years in the game “Zimbear” is a favorite in the hearts of baseball fans across America. He was a legend whose influence spans across generations, making his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954 playing alongside the great Jackie Robinson. Zimmer was a senior advisor for the Rays for 11 years, the most time he spent with any of the 13 MLB organizations he was employed with. It was a heartfelt ceremony that was met with many moist eyes, but it cemented these three legends in Ray's lore forever.
“It was a great honor… the Rays have been super,” Don Zimmer’s wife Carol Jean “Soot” Zimmer said to the associated press Sunday.
(From left to right: Stuart Sternberg, Brian Auld and Carol Jean "Soot" Zimmer look on as they honor the great Don Zimmer)
Series #2 Rays Vs Nationals
The first road trip of the year for the Rays would begin in the nation's capital for a three-game series with the Nationals. Tampa Bay would continue their excellent play as Drew Rasmussen started the series with a gem on the mound, twirling six scoreless innings while striking out seven and leading the Rays to a win in the series opener. Washington hitters swung and missed 50% of Rasmussen’s pitches, the MLB average is 23.46% according to baseball savant. The bullpen also looked sharp with clean outings from the backend horses Jason Adam and Pete Fairbanks. Coming off an injury-riddled season Fairbanks looks to be back to his ways of old, firing 99 MPH plus heaters past the opposition while staring them down from his imposing 6’6 frame from the pitcher’s mound (not counting the extra 15 inches from the MLB mound).
(Drew Rasmussen fires a pitch)
Ray’s newcomer Luke Raley has carried his hot hitting from spring into the regular season and jacked two home runs in the 6-2 win against Washington Monday night. Five of the team's 41 home runs came from Raley this spring. Raley was fighting for a roster spot this spring and impressed many of the Ray’s coaches and manager Kevin Cash by hitting to a tune of .326 over 43 at-bats while knocking in 14 to go with his five home runs. The big first Baseman attributed his hot stretch to some of the adjustments he made to his swing in the offseason.
“Just doing some things with my front foot and my hands to be simpler and quicker to the baseball,” Said Raley.
Josh Fleming would toe the rubber in the second game and unfortunately could not continue the run of success the Rays rotation had been on. Through three innings of work, Fleming would surrender five runs on 10 hits. However, the bullpen would come in to hold the game within striking distance and give the offense a chance to put up some runs and come back. After Fleming's tough start, the Rays relievers stepped up to hold the National's offense to one run over the last 6 innings.
“They did a nice job [the bullpen], the guys that came in, Jalen [Beeks] did a nice job, Kevin Kelly kept it there and if we can keep it in striking distance, we have a chance, certainly with the way the offense has been swinging the bat,” said Cash.
(Luke Raley (left) high-fives Randy Arozarena (right) after scoring)
Come back they would! It was a magical top of the ninth for the Rays as the hot-hitting Luke Raley mashed a 372-foot shot to even the score at 6-6. Just a couple of pitches later Josh Lowe would club a home run of his own into the second deck in right field to give the Rays the lead of 7-6. But the Rays would not settle for a one-run lead, something indicative of this team's identity early in this season. After working walks and good at-bats, Yandy Diaz came to the plate with two men on and tattooed a 2-0 slider, depositing it into the glove of the man warming up in the left field bullpen to close the game, Pete Fairbanks. The three-run homerun from Diaz gave the Rays a 10-6 lead going into the bottom of the ninth. The aforementioned Fairbanks would then come into the game, save situation or not Fairbanks would set the Nationals down 1-2-3 to seal an incredible comeback win to move the Rays to 5-0.
“It's like a perfect, well-rounded team,” Raley said. “We have people that do everything. I think everybody can lose some balls. I mean, there's a lot of power in the clubhouse, with a lot of speed. It's a really unique group.”
Keeping that momentum going into the wrap-up day game, the Rays left Washington D.C. with a 7-2 victory. From the first pitch at 1:05 at Nationals Park, the Ray's offense was out for blood. It wouldn’t take them long to strike, with 2 outs in the second inning Jose Siri would lift a fly ball into right field to score Arozarena on the sacrifice. Later in the third inning, Wander Franco would hit his second homer of the year (first from the right side of the plate) to give the Rays a 2-1 lead. Later in the game, Harold Ramirez would hit his first bomb of the young season and the rest of the Rays offense would scrap across runs to put the game out of reach and seal the sweep for the Rays.
(Wander Franco high-fives teammates after his 396-foot home run)
Weekly Wrap-up
The first six games of the season have all been won the “Rays Way” with stellar pitching, tidy defense and timely hitting. Kevin Cash lauded the team’s performance in the first 2 series of the year, this Rays team is the first in franchise history to start a season 6-0. “Anytime you do a first in this organization, there’s been a lot of winning teams here, so we’ve got to take that and have some pride in that,” said Cash.
In the offseason the Rays did not make any big-free agent signings or trades, hinting at their belief in this young squad. The front office seemed to bet on these guys making adjustments, training in the offseason and continuing to develop into a talented squad both pitching-wise and offensively. It is important to note the Tigers and Nationals may be the 2 worst teams in baseball, but let that take nothing away from the week this ball club has had. The beast in the A.L. East is back, and the Rays look to mean business this year.
(Credit to baseballsavant.com for stats and data, credit to Ballysports.com and mlbfilmroom.com for images and quotes)
Go Ray's baby