I am just beside myself. I don’t know how to behave. On one shoulder there is a little demon telling me to be cautious and humble in my actions and on the other shoulder is a different little demon telling me to shout it out and rub it in everybody’s face.

My dilemma is that Your Tampa Bay Rays have the best won/lost record in Major League Baseball; and it is May 27th with only 2 games left to play to complete 1/3 of the regular season. Nothing like that has ever even been close to happening before and it doesn’t look like it is going to end any too soon. Yet it is hard to definitively say why it is happening.

I have been following Major league Baseball for close to 50 years and I have seen runs like this before, but they all seemed to end as quickly as they began. This one feels different. This team doesn’t have one or two offensive weapons that are carrying them. So far it hasn’t shown sustained great pitching from any of the staff. What we have seen is different players every game stepping up at the right time. We have seen the pitching staff give steady performances almost every night. We have grown to expect that the bullpen (which has been the worst in baseball for ten years) is going to hold the lead and we are stunned when they don’t.

This Rays team doesn’t have a Josh Hamilton or Chipper Jones or Lance Berkman tearing up the league and putting the fear of God into the eyes of opposing pitchers. It doesn’t have Chase Uttley or Dan Ugla  hitting homers every twelve at bats. Their top run producer is 40th in the Major Leagues in RBIs. It doesn’t have a Brandon Webb or an Edinson Volquez or Tim Lincecum or Cliff Lee or Joe Saunders to almost Guarantee a win every fifth day and completely demoralize the opposition for the next game. It doesn’t have Francisco Rodriguez, Jonathan Papelbon, George Sherrill or Mariano Rivera closing out games. What it has is an old warhorse with attitude coming back from surgery and retirement for one last shot at the brass ring.

Even the area that is supposed to be the bright spot for the Rays isn’t the best in the league….team speed. They lead the league in stolen bases but they also lead the league in getting caught stealing. Eight players in the Majors have more stolen bases than Carl Crawford (the perennial stolen base leader) and even Joey Gathright, playing a limited amount, has the same amount of thefts as C.C..

So why do the Tampa Bay Rays have the best record in all of baseball (Gee, it’s fun to say that) with 1/3 of the season over? Hell, I don’t know. According to the individual statistics they shouldn’t have it. Or maybe that’s the reason that they are the best. No one or two players on this team has to carry the load offensively. No one or two pitchers has to carry the load on the hill. The pitchers don’t have to strike everybody out because they have the best defense in the league. 

I think the most important quality this team has is character. I have listened to many player interviews this year I have heard one common theme in them all. Baseball is a game, and you are supposed to have fun when playing a game. If you have ever seen this team congregate after a victory you know they are having fun.

The young guys like Jason Bartlett, Evan Longoria and Aki Iwamura don’t know that they are not supposed to win. Troy Percival, Eric Hinske and Cliff Floyd have won it all. They are not letting the rest of the team settle for mediocrity. They are teaching the others that winning may not be everything but losing is absolutely nothing. The whole team saw Eric Hinske’s reaction when a delegation of Red Sox players presented him with his World Series ring from last year. They want that same feeling.  

Watch out American league, this team is for real and is not going away gracefully.

On a lighter note; can you imagine the panic in the networks’ mind and in Major League Baseball’s mind when the think about an all Florida World Series in 2008?