How are the Tampa Bay Rays managing to out-Ray even themselves?
Wander Franco made history the other night. Tampa Bay’s shortstop fielded a ground ball and plucked the ball from his glove.
In the previous 42 million or so times that has happened in Major League Baseball, the player fired the ball to first base.
Not Franco. He nonchalantly tossed the ball about a foot above his head, snatched it from midair and then threw out the runner by two steps.
“Did he just do that?” Rays’ broadcaster Brian Anderson said.
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Welcome to Rays baseball 2023. It’s been five weeks of everybody saying, “Did they just do that?”
As in, did they just break a record that’s been around since William McKinley was president?
Yep. Heading into this weekend’s series against the New York Yankees, Tampa Bay had outscored opponents by 114 runs. The last team with such a larger run differential through 32 games was the 1901 Pirates.
It’s hard to ignore a team like that. Though God knows, Tampa Bay tries.
But we’re not here to bash Tampa Bay area fans for decades of treating Tropicana Field as if it’s Chernobyl. We’re here to marvel at the latest magic trick being pulled off by the most underappreciated franchise in sports.
Most wins before May 1 during modern era
Tampa Bay, with the third-lowest payroll, is running historic rings around the highfalutin Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Angels and MLB record book.
The Rays’ 23 wins before May 1st was two more than any team in baseball's modern era (since 1901). Their 26-6 start going into the weekend was the second best, trailing only the 1984 Tigers.
At that pace, Tampa would go 131-31 and probably clinch the AL East by next Thursday.
“They’re playing like the best team in the league right now,” Aaron Boone said.
He’s the manager of the Yankees and their $279 million payroll. That’s approximately $205 million more than Tampa Bay is shelling out, though the discrepancy is nothing new.
The Rays have always had payrolls closer to the 1901 Yankees, yet they’ve been a consistent contender for the past 15 years. They crunch analytics, scour other teams for undervalued players, have a bountiful farm system and are led by one of baseball’s top managers in Kevin Cash.
Rays still cannot draw fans to Tropicana Field
What they don’t have is fan support (currently 25th in the league) or a decent place to play. Again, nothing new there.
The team and local officials have been negotiating over a new stadium seemingly since 1901. The lease on the Trop is up in 2027. If a new place isn’t built by then, the Rays might bolt for Nashville or Montreal or Timbuktu.
All this has produced a perpetual image problem that makes it easy to discount the on-field product. Of ESPN’s 28-member preseason panel of “experts,” only one predicted Tampa Bay would win its division.
The Rays hadn’t made any splashy off-season moves, other than signing pitcher Zach Eflin. His three-year, $40 million contract was the biggest free-agent deal in Rays history.
In the funny-money baseball world, the Yankees re-signed Aaron Judge for $40 million. A year. For the next nine years.
We can fantasize about what the Rays front office would do if it had a Steinbrenner bankroll to play with. But then, that wouldn't be Tampa Bay.
It is baseball’s preeminent magician, regularly pulling a rabbit out of a bargain-bin hat. This year’s magic show features guys like Randy Arozarena, Josh Lowe, Yandy Diaz and Harold Ramirez.
Eflin and Shane McClanahan are two All-Star caliber starters, and there are a half-dozen decent arms in the bullpen. Then there is Franco, the 22-year-old wunderkind who’s having a breakout season.
He has two brothers who played in pro ball – Wander Alexander Franco and Wander Javier Franco. Their father, another ex-pro named Wander Franco, kept naming his sons after him in hopes that a Wander Franco would make the big leagues.
Wander Samuel Franco has more than obliged. His Globetrotter-like ball toss in Wednesday night’s 8-1 win over Pittsburgh has been viewed more than 5 million times.
“I mess around in practice. Sometimes I tend to do that at practice,” Franco said. “Through instincts, I think it just happened.”
Hold off on that World Series parade
He makes the game look almost too easy, a common trait these days in Tampa Bay.
The rest of the baseball world should not panic yet. The Rays will not win 131 games.
There’s no guarantee they’ll even win the division, especially if the Yankees succeed in picking up Shohei Ohtani, Paul Goldschmidt and Lou Gehrig’s ghost at the trade deadline.
Just know that there’s nothing fluky about Tampa Bay’s start. Like Franco and that ground ball, the Rays are just doing what seems to come naturally with the franchise.
Exactly how they do it remains a company secret. But 2023 is sure looking like the greatest magic trick yet.
David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidEWhitley
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Tampa Bay Rays own best record in MLB heading into N.Y. Yankees series
