Where things stand around MLB:
Yes the Rays have slipped to third in the AL East and are tied with two other teams a game back of the third wild card. Early in the season the excuse was key players missing due to injury but lately they've just been downright mediocre.
There's good and bad here with the good being this is a better team than their record - 5 games better according to their Pythagorean record. The bad news is that they've blown lots of leads and one of the game's top closers in Jadon Smith has been miserable this year. And the defense is horrible, taking a team that is first in pitcher WAR with a great BB/K ratio and which keeps the ball in the park to middling numbers overall.
That's not to say the offense is off the hook for blame either. For every
Luis Berumen or
Tony Fisher having an incredible season there's a
Danny Charlton, Joe Stack or
Danny Arroyave vastly underachieving. Arroyave has been badly outplayed by his injury replacement
Luis Cisneros in one of the more surprising developments of the season.
Aside from Scheu (the worst-case scenario of an extreme contact pitcher playing behind a terrible defense) the rotation has been outstanding. The real problem is the pen where our late-inning guys (Smith, Abeyta, Mauricio) have been downright awful and cost us several games. They're all well-rated with a good track record so all we can do is hope for some positive regression because we don't have money to add payroll.
The good news is that the farm system looks strong with 24 players in MLB's top 500. Marion was up briefly and could step in as the 5th starter if our move to
Leo Gutierrez doesn't work out, Serrato is our next big slugger, and Doughty is ready to catch in the bigs.