“It’s pretty disappointing,” James Shields said. “We had some high hopes for this season. To end our season the way we did, it’s not us. We have got to get better. We’ve got to reassess what we did this season and try to get better next year.”

When the Rays left Port Charlotte, Fla., at the end of Spring Training, they looked far more solid than the previous year’s AL championship team. Unfortunately for Tampa Bay, some of the players brought in to improve the club did not produce. The most notable of these being designated hitter Pat Burrell, who banked a two-year, $16 million deal, then fell far short of expectations. In addition, there were regular players such as Dioner Navarro and B.J. Upton, whose performances were less than inspiring.

But no one player can be blamed for a 2009 season in which the team seemed out of sync from the beginning. Foreshadowing a season to come, the Rays finished April with a 9-14 record, then spent the rest of the season trying to make up for their less-than-auspicious beginning.


Click here to read the full article – By Bill Chastain of MLB.com

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Although they had their best offensive season in club history, statistically, scoring a franchise-high 783 runs (782 in 2007), the Rays won’t be returning to the playoffs partly because their bats were too inconsistent, or “clumpy,” as manager Joe Maddon said. And Thursday night’s 3-2 loss to the Orioles was a perfect example.

The offense picked up two hits through the first eight innings but had three in a late rally, putting the Rays’ record in one-run games at 20-25.

The Rays have scored seven or more runs in a game 41 times. But they’ve tallied three or fewer in 70.

“It’s just there’s been days where we just really poured it on and other days where we couldn’t get it going, kind of like (Thursday) up until the last inning,” OF Ben Zobrist said. “It’s hard to find the rhyme or reason that makes it what it was. But hopefully that consistency will be there next season.”


Click here to read the full article – By Joe Smith of Tampabay.com

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The Tampa Bay Rays did take a step back after their magical run to the World Series in 2008, but they didn’t slide back into their sorry past.

Tuesday’s 3-1 win against the free-falling Baltimore Orioles in front of 10,349, the smallest home crowd of the season, guaranteed that.

It was win No. 81 for the Rays. They need one victory in their final five games to clinch only the second winning season in their 12-year history.

“That’s we want to do,” left fielder Carl Crawford said. “We want to at least finish on a positive note and have a winning record. Two winning years in a row with this organization never happened, so that’s good for us as we continue to move forward as an organization.”


Click here to read the full article – By ROGER MOONEY of Bradenton.com

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