Tampa Bay Rays first baseman Carlos Pena called a players-only team meeting this afternoon, saying he wanted the club to take a "pause," and not overreact to the recent results of their rough road trip, rather refocus on tonight's game.

Pena said he gave a short speech, which was "very lighthearted," and teammates spoke up and responded well to it. The Rays went 1-5 on their recent West Coast road trip, and the "hype" has been around the wild card race and making it to the playoffs. Pena said he wanted them to not focus on the past, or what the Yankees or Red Sox are doing, but rather focus on what they can do to help the team in that night's game.

“I just think it’s good sometimes just to pause instead of just letting the avalanche of whatever that’s going on take you over,” Pena said. “So I like to just press pause, and it might be just telling a joke, but as long as we all just pause, I think it’s very important. That was the idea, just to take that break from something that probably seems larger than it really is."

Pena also wanted to put everything in perspective and "diffuse the bomb."

"We’re a great team," Pena said. "What we’ve done has been unbelievable. It's one of the things I want to make sure we always remind ourselves of. Sometimes you sit here and are like, we’re not in first place, we’re the second best. I wanted us to look back two years ago when we’re in last place and all of a sudden, we’re demanding that of ourselves to have the best record in baseball. Where did all that humility go. Where did all that appreciation for what’s going on here, go? I don’t ever want to take for granted the fact that we’re actually doing pretty well, if you look at our record by itself. Fortunately, we’re in the best division in baseball so it demands a lot better than a good record.

"I don’t want that to take away from the fact we’ve also been doing well, we’ve played great baseball. And the best of it all is that we’re not even playing, in my opinion, up to our capabilities."

The meeting was "just to remind ourselves that we’re a great team, that we have everything we need, to press pause and take a break, and step out of it, and just diffuse the bomb an pretty much unmask the monster. . I thought it was very important for us to take a break.”

It was the second players-only meeting this season. Pena also called a meeting before Game 7 of the ALCS last season.

-- JOE SMITH

joesmith@sptimes.com