Soccer Dad

Why are the rays struggling?

Currently last year's surprise Tampa Bay Rays sit in 4th place in the AL East with a pretty bad 15 - 19 record. Despite a pretty good run differential, +10, they don't appear to be headed to the post-season again.

Of course it's still early. Still it's worth recalling that in his preseason analysis, Baseball Crank commented:

As I've detailed on several occasions, that improvement was partly the young pitching but overwhelmingly the defense. There being really no precedent for this sort of thing, I remain guarded and skeptical at best about whether they can avoid a natural letdown from such a drastic leap forward in defense in a single season.

Last year indeed, the Rays led the majors in defensive efficiency. (The ratio of batted balls that turned are turned into outs. This is a pretty good measure of the quality of a team's defense.) However this year so far, the Rays are 11th in baseball in defensive efficiency. That's not bad, but it isn't at the same level as last year.

Obviously there are other factors in the Rays' slide - the struggles of Scott Kazmir and a number of their hitters - and this is something that could improve over time along with their record.

One of the Rays players made a great observation about defensive efficiency. Actually it's Pat Burrell, their DH, who played with the world champion Phillies last year who refuses to blame his early struggles with the bat on his role as DH:

"In my opinion, that hasn't had anything to do with it," Burrell says. "I've actually enjoyed the role -- especially when you look out there and see all the balls getting caught that I wouldn't have gotten to."

BTW, the Phillies who let Burrell get away are ranked 6th in defensive efficiency so far this year.