TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays were on a historic winning streak to open the 2023 season. Heading into Toronto this weekend, the Rays were 13-0, having easily disposed of the Detroit Tigers, the Washington Nationals, the Oakland A’s, and the Boston Red Sox. But the Rays went into Canada on Friday to begin a three-game set against the Blue Jays, and they found out things aren’t going to be as easy as those first 13 games made them think they were.
On the latest episode of the Locked On Rays podcast, cohosts Ulises Sambrano and Kevin Weiss discussed Tampa’s weekend slight fall back down to earth against the Blue Jays, which was salvaged by a big win on Sunday against Toronto starter Alek Manoah.
Sambrano called out the fans of other teams who kept bringing up Tampa’s soft schedule to start the season.
“The historic run is over. That sucks. We all wanted the 14th win. We all wanted the sole possession of that record," he said. "Especially because of the whole vitriol, honestly, that the Rays seemed to get or the Rays fandom seemed to get on social media. You know, with the whole soft schedule stuff. And then you get hit with the Bue Jays, and you lose twice. You lose the series. It feeds into their poorly constructed narrative.”
But if you look at the Rays' schedule so far, it was soft. The Tigers, Nationals, A’s, and Red Sox went a combined 259-389 in 2022. None of them made the playoffs, and so far, it does look too good for anyone of them in 2023.
And that’s okay!
The Rays did what a good team is supposed to do during that 13-game winning streak. You beat up on the weaker teams. During the A’s series, the Rays won the final two games by a combined score of 22-0. Sure, they may have faltered against the Blue Jays a bit this weekend.
The pitching wasn’t as strong, and the defense was sloppy, especially on Friday night. but they bounced back on Sunday and drove the Blue Jays' young phenom Alek Manoah from the game after only four and two–third innings and scored seven runs off him. They won the game 8-1 and ended the weekend on a high note.
On Friday night, the Rays were down early after a George Springer lead-off home run. However, it wasn’t the first time they had found themselves behind in a game in 2023, and they cut Toronto’s lead in half to 2-1 in the fourth, thanks to an RBI single by Luke Raley.
Then, things fell apart for the Rays in the bottom of the fifth when they gave up four runs, and they ended up losing their first game of the season 6-3.
On Saturday, Yusei Kikuchi pitched six innings of one-run ball for the Blue Jays, and they won 5-2.
Every team loses multiple series during a long 162-game season. It’s inevitable. It just took a little longer for the Rays to do it. And hey, as of the time of this article, they still haven’t lost a game in the United States.
Next up for the Rays, a series against the Cincinnati Reds, who are 6-9 to start 2023.
BE SURE to listen and subscribe to Locked On Rays wherever you find your podcasts!