The Tampa Bay Rays pitched, hit and caught the ball better than anybody in MLB the first two weeks of the season to tie a post-1900 big-league record with their 13-0 start.
Now comes the hard part. Whatever’s next.
There’s certainly no shame — and probably no coincidence — in losing to the Blue Jays in Toronto on Friday to end the streak. Even losing two in a row before avoiding the sweep with a win Sunday. The Jays are considered one of the American League favorites this year.
There’s also no reason to assume that a record-setting start assures anything about the way the Rays’ season might end, not if history tells us anything.
The last MLB team to start 13-0 — the 1987 Milwaukee Brewers — not only missed the playoffs that year but finished third. In fact they were 42-43 by the All-Star break before rallying for a 49-28 second half.
“It was like we just all of a sudden hit a wall,” broadcaster Dan Plesac, a pitcher on that Brewers team, told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. “We went from, like, the best team at 17-1 to under .500 at the break.”
The only other MLB team to start 13-0 — the 1982 Atlanta Braves — also had an 11-game losing streak that season and was four games out of first on Aug. 18 before rallying to win their division with 89 wins. Then they got swept in the playoffs.
Plesac said he sees a much different team in the Rays than his ’87 Brewers.
“They’re not going to run into that, because they just have more of everything that we didn’t have in ’87. . . . They’re got a lot of weapons,” Plesac said, even as he acknowledged the likes of Robin Yount and Paul Molitor on that club.
“We had two Hall of Fame players, but we didn’t have 1 through 9 what they have. We just didn’t. The Rays are good. They’re really good. They’re one of the best teams in baseball.”
And for what it’s worth: They didn’t seem to spend much time appreciating all that winning after that first loss.
“Losing always sucks,” Rays second baseman Brandon Lowe said.
By the way, for the history nuts curious about the pre-1900 MLB record for longest winning streak to start a season, go all the way back to the 1884 Union Association and Buttercup Dickerson’s St. Louis Maroons.
They won 20 straight before a loss to Boston, on the way to a 94-19 season.
Time Warp
Leave it to MLB’s enforcement division to ruin a perfectly wonderful rollout of the game’s first pitch clock rule.
It took exactly 16 days to smack the collective smiles off fans’ faces from Chicago to Los Angeles with the stupidest clock violation of what we can only hope will be the entire season.
Cody Bellinger — the former Dodgers Rookie of the Year, All-Star, MVP and World Series winner — returned for the first time to Dodger Stadium after signing over the winter with the Cubs and was treated as he approached the plate in the first inning to an extended ovation from the appreciative crowd.
And then a clock violation for the delay in getting in the box and ready to hit on time.
“I was surprised, but rules are rules, I guess,” Bellinger, who eventually grounded out in that at-bat, told reporters after the game.
“I wasn’t happy about that,” Cubs manager David Ross said. “I think Major League Baseball and umpires do a really nice job of keeping the integrity of the game. We’ve got to find those moments where you’re giving some love to players that the fan base wants to appreciate.”
In fact, former Pittsburgh Pirates MVP Andrew McCutchen, in his return to the Pirates this year, got an even longer, extended ovation during Pittsburgh’s home opener — and was given as much time as he needed to have his moment and calm his emotions before stepping into the box.
The umpire in Bellinger’s case is no rookie. Jim Wolf has been a full-time MLB ump for more than 20 years and even has a brother, Randy Wolf, who was an All-Star pitcher during a 16-year big-league career.
In the immortal words of the Dodgers broadcaster Friday: “Come on, Jim.”
Stink, stank, stunk
What’s that smell?
If you said the Oakland Athletics, you’d be close.
Because it’s not just the team on the field that has stunk to new lows this season; it’s the stadium itself. Again.
Seems a possum has long taken up residence in the actual walls of the visitors television booth at Oakland Coliseum, startling the Los Angeles Angels broadcast crew when he emerged from a hole into the booth during the season-opening telecast.
By the time the New York Mets crew showed up Friday for the A’s homestand opener in Oakland, the possum had left an indelible mark — many, many marks, it seems — on the room.
“Apparently the booth reeked so badly of possum leavings that an executive decision was made to move us to this booth, which is somewhat smaller and has a few impediments,” Mets broadcaster Gary Cohen explains during the series opener.
Ten years ago some of the plumbing in same aging stadium ruptured, sending another highly malodorous flow through parts of both teams’ clubhouses and the umpire’s room.
Which led to the classic line A’s executive Billy Beane was able to use whenever he got asked about something he preferred not to talk about, like when we asked for his thoughts on big-market teams starting to tank to rebuild just like small market teams:
“Hey, I’m just trying to keep raw sewage out of my clubhouse.”
Can somebody finally get these guys a new ballpark?
MLB Short Hops
WayTooEarly AL Cy Young watch: Gerrit Freaking Cole is one of the few New York Yankees without a broken bone, pulled muscle, bad back, twisted knee, ankle sprain or strain of some other body part. Rarer still: He’s won all four starts, has the fifth-best ERA (0.95) in the majors, is averaging more than seven innings and eight strikeouts per start, hasn’t allowed a home run (after allowing an AL-high 33 last year) and on Sunday beat the Twins 2-0 with one of just two complete games pitched in MLB so far this year (also Sandy Alcantara). The Yankees are 6-6 when Cole doesn’t pitch. …
Hot prospect?: Some San Diego Padres prospect is second in the Pacific Coast League with seven home runs, just one off the league lead despite playing barely half his team’s games. Also has six walks and a 1.802 OPS in 39 plate appearance. Could be worth keeping an eye on this Fernando Tatis Jr. fellow. …
Who could have known?: You’re lying if you predicted first place for the the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks in the two West divisions — even at the 10% mark of the season. …
Welcome Back: Tatis, by the way, returned to San Diego after his eight-game minor-league stint ahead of Thursday’s reinstatement from his PED suspension, Thursday against the Diamondbacks. He hasn’t played a big-league game since Oct. 3, 2021, because of injuries and the 80-game suspension. …
What’s in a name: The Cubs have a cowboy hat, the Pirates a sword and the Brewers a foam cheesehead hat for home run celebrations this year. But the best one we’ve seen among all the new props is the Baltimore Orioles’ Dong Bong (so named by fans on social media). “It’s a homer hose. It’s not a bong,” O’s manager Brandon Hyde clarified. We stand corrected, allegedly.
Gordon Wittenmyer covers Major League Baseball for Sportsnaut. You can follow him on Twitter at @GDubCub.