Rays working to address what led to ‘most disappointing exit’

ST. PETERSBURG — Had the results been different last week, Rays manager Kevin Cash and top baseball operations executives Erik Neander and Peter Bendix would have been much happier Monday sitting in the makeshift interview room at Tropicana Field.

But instead of previewing hosting Game 3 of the American League Division Series against the Orioles, they were reliving their stunning Wild Card Series sweep by the Rangers and reflecting on the frustrations of a third consecutive season that ended in their first round of the playoffs.

In his opening remarks, Neander called it a “highly successful but highly disappointing season,” and it appears both can be true.

He said as much when asked if six weeks from now he’d expect to feel one more than the other when processing all the injuries and Wander Franco issue the talent-laden team overcame to win 99 games and the top AL wild card versus their poor showing at home and sudden dismissal by the lower-seeded Rangers, who limped into the postseason.

“No,” Neander said. “We talked about it last year. Last year’s exit was really difficult. We’re human.

“I think this one, the way those two games played out with the expectation — this group went from ‘Man, are we ever going to be able to have a representative team on the field the way we envisioned it?,’ to ‘Oh my gosh, this team has arguably the best bullpen in the postseason, the two starters we had (in Tyler Glasnow and Zach Eflin), a batting champ (in Yandy Diaz), Harold (Ramirez) would have been third in batting’ — of a team that got to a spot of being really well-equipped for a deep postseason run. Didn’t happen.”

The expectations, he said, were well-earned.

Which made the fall harder.

“It’s disappointing,” Neander said. “It’s the fifth year in a row we’ve made it. That was to me — I don’t want to speak for these guys — but probably the most disappointing exit we’ve had. That’s part raising the expectations and part just the way those two games went down, and as quickly as they went down. That’s not going to go away.”

The challenge now, Neander said, is to take time — and a few deep breaths — and assess what needs to be addressed.

“That’s what we’ve got to figure out — I think it’s important to take all the positives and make sure two games doesn’t represent anything when we’re looking at this club. We’ve got to keep building upon the positives that are there. You don’t win 99 games with all that went wrong without a really strong foundation, we’re going to be proud of that.

“But that disappointment, if that’s not there, then you probably shouldn’t be doing these jobs.”

The most obvious issue the Rays had in losing to the Rangers was their lack of offense, scoring just one run and rapping only two extra-base hits while striking out 18 times.

But Bendix and Neander said that happens in the postseason, when facing top opposing starters, as they did in Jordan Montgomery and Nate Eovaldi. And you had to only go back to last year, when the Rays also were held to one run — over 24 innings — in getting swept at Cleveland.

What stood out more about this year, Neander said, was the ineffectiveness of the Rays starters, as Glasnow allowed four runs (three earned) over five innings while walking five (and throwing a run-scoring wild pitch), and Eflin allowed five (four earned), including two home runs, and also only lasted five innings.

Neander also noted the Rays’ sloppy play in the field, with five charged errors and a handful of other misplays and missed plays.

And all while playing under the tilted Trop roof, where the Rays had a majors-best matching 53-28 record.

“I think the defense and the two outings for (Glasnow) and (Eflin), that was a little more uncharacteristic relative to the things that you’d think are more likely to be there for you,” Neander said.

All of which makes it tougher to determine what — besides the obvious of better health — needs to be changed: The players? Staff? Philosophies? Methodologies of roster building and lineup making? Pre-game food? Stadium music? Getting more fans at the games?

Neander said they will do a full internal study — as they do each year, and would have even if they had won the World Series — to review their practices (though they won’t bring in an outside consulting firm as the Yankees are doing) as well as watch and learn more what other teams, especially those still playing, are doing.

“There’s an open-mindedness that exists to figuring out what can we do better to get over the hump,” he said. “It’s a constant review process, a constant effort to figure out how to get better. And there’s no hint of us thinking we’ve got anything figured out because there’s still steps that we need to take that we haven’t that a lot of other people have.”

Not that it’s easy.

“It’s a bit of a game of Whac-a-Mole, and you’ve got to be really careful,” Neander said. “You need to be disciplined. You’ve got to be careful you’re not being too stubborn in your effort to be disciplined. Ever learning, ever growing. …

“We lost seven postseason games in a row over multiple seasons, multiple rosters. ... It’s a really difficult thing to try to understand the answer. But we’re going to keep punching and do what we can here.”

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