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ST. PETERSBURG — If it wasn't for what the Rays did last year, this season actually wouldn't be half-bad.
Tuesday's 3-1 win over the woeful Orioles gave the Rays their 81st win, ensuring at least a .500 record, with five more chances to finish on the winning side. For an organization that never won more than 70 games in its first 10 seasons, that would have been considered a significant milestone.
"We'd be talking about how good this year was," veteran Carl Crawford said.
But the reality is that after last year's thrilling run to the World Series, the Rays can find only minimal solace knowing their season ends Sunday.
"Obviously the season has been a disappointment," manager Joe Maddon said. "We all feel that way. Talk to every one of our guys, none of us could 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 that we could have. The bad April really hurt us and the 11-game losing streak … we ran into a bad thicket of scheduling at the wrong time; we weren't playing well.
"But, I like what we're doing right now — a lot, actually. It speaks a lot for the culture that we've created. Easily could have just mailed all these games in and the season's over, we don't care. I see a bunch of guys going out there playing to win every night. And actually we're playing some of our better baseball right now that I've seen all year."
The context matters, of course, as the Rays (81-76) aren't playing for anything of true consequence, and the Orioles are having trouble just playing the game, losing their major-league season-high 12th straight.
But there were some things for the Rays to be proud of before a season-low crowd of 10,349, three fewer than on Monday.
Crawford topped the list, capping his best overall season with his career-high 60th stolen base. Rookie Wade Davis rebounded from a shaky start to work seven solid innings for his second major-league win. Centerfielder B.J. Upton made a really good catch and a spectacular one, running full speed toward the wall left of center, and looked good, again, at the plate. Ben Zobrist, strengthening his case for team MVP, picked up his 85th RBI with a double that keyed a two-run first. Gabe Gross and Gregg Zaun teamed up for a key out at the plate. Reid Brignac had two more hits. (They lost one potential accomplishment as injured Carlos Peña lost the AL home run lead when New York's Mark Teixeira tied him with his 39th.)
Crawford said he doesn't set a goal beyond 50 steals, but since he got to 59 a week-and-a-half ago, he'd become increasingly eager (and caught twice trying) to get to 60. "I got to 59 one time (in 2004) so I wanted to make sure I did it this time," he said.
Crawford became just the third American Leaguer to do so in the 2000s, joining Boston's Jacoby Ellsbury (a major-league-high 66 this season) and Los Angeles' Chone Figgins (62 in 2005), as well as the fifth major-leaguer in the past 20 years to go 60-60 — 60 steals and 60 RBIs.
The win was the Rays' third straight and improved them to 9-5 since the 11-game skid that dropped them from contention. Given the situation, they'll take it.
"I think that's what we wanted to do, we wanted to at least finish on a positive note and have a winning record still," Crawford said. "Two winning years in a row in this organization never happened, so that's good for us."
It's just that after last year, it's not good enough.
Marc Topkin can be reached at topkin@sptimes.com
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