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Fennelly: A sideways glance at another unsatisfying Rays season

 
Evan Longoria hugs Steven Souza Jr. after Longoria’s homer.
Evan Longoria hugs Steven Souza Jr. after Longoria’s homer.
Published Sept. 30, 2017

ST. PETERSBURG — It is another losing season for the Rays.

And there's no compelling reason to think next season will be different.

Kevin Cash's team and the Orioles began to play out the rest of the string Friday at Tropicana Field. Three meaningless games, unless you were there solely there to wave at the returning Tim Beckham.

The last Rays playoff season, 2013, moves further away. Four years of losing Rays records, including three in a row under Cash.

Yes, the Rays won't lose 94 games, like last season. After Friday's 7-0 victory, 84 is the worst they can do at this point. Some would point to that as a 10-game improvement.

But this franchise doesn't really seem to be on the verge of anything.

Before the season, I thought this would be a .500 team, with a chance to be slightly better.

So where's the gripe?

Well, the Rays had a real chance in this awful AL wild-card race. They knew it, too. They were surprise buyers in and around the trade deadline, or as much as they can be.

It fell apart.

RELATED: Rays, playing for pride, rout Orioles to start season-ending series.

The Rays were seven games over .500 on July 18. Illusion or no, they had their shot. And they know it.

"We got out of the break pretty good, but things went sideways on us, and we just couldn't rebound," Cash said.

Things always get sideways with the Rays.

"It's something we've got to figure out," said outfielder Steve Souza, who Friday won the Don Zimmer Award for Rays MVP as voted on by the Tampa Bay chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. "We can't keep coming in here, doing the same stuff and expecting different results. That's the definition of insanity."

Cash gets a fourth season. He's isn't completely to blame for this season, but he isn't blameless, either.

Then again, this team set a club record for home runs but is still at the bottom of the AL in runs scored.

"Offensively, we've got to do a better job of balancing the lineup, some on-base guys," Cash said.

He actually mentioned the seasonlong loss of Matt Duffy.

"We've talked about the void of Matt Duffy," Cash said.

Ah, the void of Matt Duffy.

Sounds like something in a science fiction film.

Not to be confused with the Brad Miller vortex.

Or the Tim Beckham complex.

RELATED: Writers name Steven Souza Jr. team MVP.

Cash sees a reason for optimism:

"The pitching. The young pitching that we have that's already here and the young pitching that's really close, and that's starter and reliever."

But do we really know anything for sure? Do we really know if Evan Longoria will return to his comeback form of 2016? Do we know that Chris Archer will ever be a better No. 1 starter than a social conscience? Alex Cobb is off to free agency. Logan Morrison and Lucas Duda will probably leave. Will Adeiny Hechavarria's glove return to shortstop?

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You never know.

"Especially here,'' Souza said. "You never know who's going to be back. Evan is going to be back here, and Kevin (Kiermaier) and Chris. Other than that, we really don't know."

Where did this season go wrong? Tampa Bay Times baseball writer Marc Topkin brilliantly laid out the Book of the Dead, chapter and verse, including that 2-8 stretch that saw the Rays score 12 runs in 10 games.

Or maybe it's as simple as that easy grounder that should have been the final out of the bottom of the ninth inning of a Rays win in New York, but it somehow went between a bunched-together Hechavarria and that man Beckham in a pathetic loss to the Yankees. That was it for me.

The Minnesota Twins lost 103 games last season. They sold off a starter and their closer at the trade deadline. They've been without one of their best hitters, Miguel Sano, for a month. But Minnesota will play the Yankees in the AL wild-card game.

I suppose anything is possible for the Rays in 2018.

Including sideways.