Shane on the Moon

The Tampa Bay Rays defy logic.

Of the contending AL East players, they made the least amount of moves, have the lowest budget, and made the most subtractions. And then they go and win the first three games of the season and get crushed by the Oakland A's to follow it up. Nothing about this team has made sense since 2018. NOTHING.

The most confounding thing about this Rays team is that, with some minor exceptions, this team has stayed pretty much the same every year of its competitive era. Yandy Diaz is still a defensive liability at third but there he is. Ji-Man Choi disappears for chunks of a season but there he is. Kevin Kiermaier sometimes won't be much of a factor at the plate but how could you lose him? 

And at the same time, the pitching staff seems to look different every year. You take out three or four homegrown pitchers and four more grow back in their place. You have injuries to Tyler Glasnow, Shane Baz, Ryan Yarbrough and Yonny Chirinos? There's still Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, Luis Patino and...who the hell is this Tommy Romero kid- okay, I guess him too. And at the same time you can bring in 36-year-old Corey Kluber to be awesome every 5 days. The crazy part about a lot of these guys is that next to none of them actually came up through the Rays' system. Baz was traded for Chris Archer, Rasmussen for Willy Adames and Patino for Blake Snell.

What should be reassuring for the Rays' drafting plan is that McClanahan, who is looking and acting like the ace in Tampa, was homegrown. I think that if Glasnow takes as long as he does on the IL, they will be fine with someone like McClanahan. I am seeing great things from him, even if nobody knew who he was a year ago. And I think that if so much else fluctuates with this team, and this rotation [Patino's already heading to the IL], he should be locked in for a bit.

Seeing the Rays coming off to a lead in the division so quickly is sort of unsurprising. Their history of high-scoring low-budget teams will clearly go on, and as long as Kevin Cash is running things, it'll be like this. However, seeing them really chase the A's, going neck and neck like they did last night...that is surprising. And that could be a concern if it keeps happening with non-competitive teams.

Coming Tonight: One of two major additions to a team that has been screaming for a playoff berth for almost half a decade now.