Rangers Tops in AL, but Rays Not Far Behind at BetLM

ARLINGTON (MLB/Bauman) – What­ever you say about the Tampa Bay Rays — and what­ever you say ought to be some­thing seri­ously pos­i­tive — they have been the only team capa­ble of tak­ing a regular-season series from the Texas Rangers since the begin­ning of last September

The Rangers had won 12 con­sec­u­tive regular-season series — the last six of 2011, and the first six of 2012. But that streak came to an end this week­end, with the Rays win­ning two out of three, tak­ing the deci­sive third game, 5–2, on Sun­day night.

Prior to that, the Rangers’ last regular-season series loss was last Sept. 5–7, when they dropped two out of three at Trop­i­cana Field. This has not, of course, been a one-way street. The Rays have been elim­i­nated from post­sea­son play the last two sea­sons with Divi­sion Series losses to the Rangers.

The Rangers, win­ning back-to-back Amer­i­can League pen­nants and own­ing the league’s best record this sea­son, have emerged as the AL’s gold stan­dard. But more than any other club, the Rays, with three post­sea­son appear­ances in four years, and another fine sea­son under­way, are mak­ing an argu­ment that they are resid­ing in the same vicinity.

But suc­ceed­ing against the Rangers is not an optional activity.

“We have to play well against the Rangers,” Rays man­ager Joe Mad­don said. “We have to beat the Rangers to get to the promised land.”

This series was con­tested at a high level of inten­sity, before three sell­out crowds. On Sun­day night, just as in the Rays’ vic­tory on Fri­day night, the Rangers threat­ened late, this time load­ing the bases in the ninth against closer Fer­nando Rod­ney. But Rod­ney emerged with his sev­enth save in seven oppor­tu­ni­ties, and the Rays emerged with the series victory.

Mad­don men­tioned the “Octo­ber in April” theme to this event. This was not an over­state­ment. These teams are the prod­ucts of two of baseball’s best orga­ni­za­tions. They are well-made, well-managed and jus­ti­fi­ably look­ing for even bet­ter things in the fore­see­able future.

“I really appre­ci­ate how they play,” Mad­don said of the Rangers. “They play the game prop­erly, and you’ve got to be ready, because if you’re not, they will embar­rass you.

“I have so much respect for what they’ve done, and I’d like to believe that they feel the same way about us. I think [these are] two teams that are play­ing the game in sim­i­lar fash­ion, in that we play hard, we have good pitch­ing. Obvi­ously, the offen­sive side of their game has been a lit­tle bit bet­ter than ours has been recently.

“But at the end of the day, I think you have two teams that truly, truly fight for every­thing on a nightly basis. And I think that’s where the rivalry can be born. I like it. I think it’s good for us, it’s good for them and it’s good for baseball.”

There should be no argu­ments on that score. What was dou­bly encour­ag­ing for the Rays on Sun­day night was starter David Price fol­low­ing his shutout against the Angels with another highly effec­tive per­for­mance. This was Price’s first vic­tory over the Rangers. He had been 0–3 against them in the reg­u­lar sea­son and 0–3 against them in the postseason.

“I think that’s the best lineup in base­ball,” Price said of the Rangers. “They’ve got power one through nine, they’ve got speed mixed in there. They can hit the ball out to any part of the ball­park here. You’ve got to be able to make pitches and keep the ball down.

“Per­son­ally, for myself, I never beat those guys, so that feels great. But I’m pumped that we won [the series] as well. I can turn that page now; it feels good.”

With one game left in April, the Rays, play­ing a sched­ule weighted toward road games, are tied for the AL East lead at 14–8. They are 8–1 at home, 6–7 on the road. The Rangers are 16–6. Win­ners of seven of their last eight games, the Rays have had a better-than-solid beginning.

“I think we’ve had a great April; not a good April, a great April, based on the teams that we’ve played and the sched­ule itself,” Mad­don said. “I’m really pleased and proud of our guys. Believe me, man, I think we’ve done wonderfully.”

This team has the strengths that the Tampa Bay teams of recent sea­sons have had: pitch­ing in both qual­ity and quan­tity, a top-flight defense and an oppor­tunis­tic, aggres­sive offense. And the entire ros­ter is on board with the way the Rays are sup­posed to play the game.

The Rays just gave a demon­stra­tion of how good they can be, against the best pos­si­ble oppo­si­tion. The results tell us the same thing that Mad­don is telling us.

“The Rangers are really good,” Mad­don said. “But I think the Rays are, too.”

 

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