Making sense of the Rays’ hot start to open 2023 campaign

“You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose”

The famous quote by Hall of Fame college football coach Lou Holtz — especially the first part of it — was being thrown around a lot this past week in the wake of the Tampa Bay Rays’ record-tying 13-0 start to the 2023 baseball season.

A start like this from a team with the 28th-lowest payroll in baseball — in which it outscored the opposition 101-30, more than the total runs of 27 other teams, while winning 11 of those games by four or more runs — would ordinarily seem quite phenomenal.

Going into the weekend the Rays led the majors in runs, batting, homers, OPS, total bases and ERA — and according to the Elias Sports Bureau, their plus-71 run differential in those first 13 games was the best in the modern era (post-1900).

But it does pale somewhat when you consider the quality of the opposition.

The four teams the Rays mopped the floor with in winning their first 13 games — Tigers, Nationals, A’s and Red Sox — are all very likely going to finish last this year. And as an added gift from the schedule-maker, 10 of those first 13 games for the Rays were at home.

Sure enough, the streak ended Friday night in Toronto when the Rays self-destructed amid a flurry of walks and defensive misplays that led to a 6-3 loss to the Blue Jays, the first team they’d faced this season with a winning record.

That said, even with this admittedly very small and somewhat tainted sampling, the Rays have the outward appearance of being a very different team from the one that finished third in the American League East last year, 13 games behind the Yankees.

The ’22 Rays were especially challenged offensively, ranking 20th in the majors in runs, 25th in homers, 23rd in OPS, along with the 12th-most strikeouts. They were a hard team to watch, especially in the AL wild-card series against the Guardians in which they scored one run in 24 innings and struck out 29 times.

Something had to be done, but instead of spending money in the free-agent market or trading prospects for an established hitter, Rays general manager Erik Neander looked over the landscape and concluded the two hitters who could best improve his team were his own two best hitters, Wander Franco and Brandon Lowe, who both missed the better part of last season with injuries.

And so far,Neander’s decision to stand pat is being proved right as Franco is off to a .316/.361/.649 start through Friday and Lowe was at .324 with a team-high five homers.

In the opinion of one scout who’s been following the Rays the last two years, this hot start may also be attributed to so many young Rays players coming into their own.

As of Friday, six of the Rays’ regulars were hitting over .300, while the Rays’ pitchers led the majors in ERA (2.23) and had given up the fewest homers (seven). According to Major League Baseball, the Rays’ average age of 28.30 makes them the third-youngest team in baseball.

Indeed, the Rays’ roster is a tribute to Neander’s trading acumen. Of the regulars, only Franco and the two Lowes, Brandon and Josh, are homegrown.