ST. PETERSBURG — There will not be a postseason in Tampa Bay, but there will not be a losing record, either.
The Tampa Bay Rays did take a step back after their magical run to the World Series in 2008, but they didn’t slide back into their sorry past.
Tuesday’s 3-1 win against the free-falling Baltimore Orioles in front of 10,349, the smallest home crowd of the season, guaranteed that.
It was win No. 81 for the Rays. They need one victory in their final five games to clinch only the second winning season in their 12-year history.
“That’s we want to do,” left fielder Carl Crawford said. “We want to at least finish on a positive note and have a winning record. Two winning years in a row with this organization never happened, so that’s good for us as we continue to move forward as an organization.”
Think the folks in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati would like to trade places with the baseball fans in Tampa Bay? How about those suffering through another lost year in Baltimore?
Put this season before last and the ending would be much different.
“It would have been a good year,” Crawford said. “We’d be talking about how good this year is. We can’t just get too down on it. Obviously, we didn’t make the playoffs. That’s what we wanted to do, but we still have a winning record, and next year we have a chance to come back and do it all over again.”
The Rays created their own disappointment by not living up to the preseason mantra, which, numerically looked like this: ’09 > ’08.
This year was not better than last year for the team that won the American League East division and the American League pennant and, along the way, proved a small payroll club can take down some of the big-money teams with good pitching, a solid bullpen and a strong bench.
“Obviously this season has been a disappointment,” manager Joe Maddon said. “We all feel that way. Talk to any of our guys, none of us can watch TV right now. I can’t watch SportsCenter. I can’t watch the MLB Network. I can’t read the papers. I’m really soured by the fact that we did not get back, because I truly believe we could have.”
Rays rookie Wade Davis earned his second win of the season Tuesday when he pitched seven innings of seven-hit ball, retiring the last 10 batters he faced.
Crawford stole his 60th base, which is a career-high and a team record.
Rookie infielder Reid Brignac had a pair of hits, including a double. Ben Zobrist continued to drive in runs. His first inning RBI double was his sixth RBI in his last three games. B.J. Upton, moved to the leadoff spot with Jason Bartlett taking the night off, had a double, drove in the final run with a sacrifice fly and made another “Wow! Did you see that?” catch in left-center field.
Maddon is glad to see the disappointment surrounding a winning season. It means expectations are high when they concern his team.
“I want the level of expectations raised annually,” Maddon said. “That’s a good thing.”
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