Red-hot Rays – for now, the AL's best – barrel into first battle against champion Red Sox

For the better part of a decade, the Tampa Bay Rays have attracted certain buzzwords that stick to them like a sweat-soaked shirt in a Pinellas County summer.

Innovative. Disruptive. Efficient.

Here’s one that should really haunt the American League East Division hierarchy: powerhouse.

Yes, the franchise that brought you Joe Maddon’s managerial zaniness, four-man outfields and the "Opener" has now amassed a roster that, through the season’s first 19 games, performed exactly as the Rays envisioned.

That’s a little scary.

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In an industry where most of the proprietary edges have vanished as teams rush headlong into the analytics era, the Rays — off to a 14-5 start entering Friday — have managed to stay ahead of the game and, for the moment, ahead of their big-money brethren in the AL East.

Friday, the Rays play the first of 38 games against the defending World Series champion Red Sox and Yankees. For now, the getting is good.

The Red Sox (opening-day payroll: $224 million) are 6-13, the worst record in the AL East, as nearly every member of their title team has underperformed. 

The Yankees ($208 million) are 8-10, with a litany of stars on the injured list and a laundry list of legitimate questions surrounding the starting pitching.

The Rays? At an opening-day price tag of about $60 million, they have fielded the best team in baseball, by any measure. With the appropriate April sample-size caveats in place, Tampa Bay:

— Sports a major league-best +46 run differential, or, 88 runs better than the -42 Red Sox.

— Leads the major leagues in ERA and OPS against at 2.50 and .588 and ranks second the AL in batting average against (.208) and WHIP (1.02).

— Ranks third in the AL second in strikeouts per nine innings (10.04).

— Ranks third in the AL in OPS (.795) and runs (96) and second in extra-base hits (68).

Sustainable? We shall see. But in what’s increasingly a young man’s game, the Rays — with just one regular, Tommy Pham, older than 30 — are hitting the AL with a wave of young talent.

Backing them up is a farm system that ranks a consensus No. 2, behind only the  Padres.

“They’ve got a ton of good prospects, a ton of good young players,” Evan Longoria, the greatest player in franchise history, told USA TODAY Sports on Thursday. “That helps. When you’ve got a lot of good players, it doesn’t matter what kind of philosophy you have. If you have better players than anyone else, you’re going to win.”

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Longoria was traded from Tampa Bay to San Francisco in December 2017, kick-starting a remodel that resulted in a near wholesale turnover of the 40-man roster over a three-year period. Senior VP and GM Erik Neander purged several more veterans that winter. By June, the club trotted out its “Opener” strategy, starting a relief pitcher for a one- or two-inning stint to limit the liability of a back-end rotation member.

Teammates initially chafed at the trades. Traditionalists seethed at the “Opener.” Erstwhile ace Chris Archer was dealt in July.

The Rays won 90 games.

Come the offseason, they zagged again, dealing 23-year-old first baseman Jake Bauers for Yandy Diaz, an unheralded 27-year-old with one career home run and no position. They even sent cash along to the Indians to make the three-team deal with Seattle work. The reasoning: They loved Diaz’s hard-hit ball rate.

Naturally, Diaz has slugged four home runs, sports a .923 OPS and 155 OPS-plus - and is hitting the ball softer than all of his lineup mates.

Oh, he gets his barrels — Diaz’s hard-hit rate, at 40%, ranks 103rd among all major leaguers with at least 30 batted-ball events. 

It’s just that Tommy Pham (12th in MLB at 55%), Kevin Kiermaier (26th), Avisail Garcia (37th), Willy Adames (49th), Mike Zunino (73rd), Brandon Lowe (85th), Ji-Man Choi (87th) and Austin Meadows (98th) all hit the ball 95 mph or harder with greater frequency.

Pham and Meadows were acquired in July trades, Zunino in December and Garcia after the White Sox non-tendered him. Now, the Rays account for nearly 10% of the major leagues’ top hard-hit artists.

Their lone offseason splurge — a two-year, $30 million deal  to right-hander Charlie Morton — hasn’t disappointed: The Rays have won three of his four starts, and he’s struck out 25 in 20⅔ innings.

Tyler Glasnow, acquired with Meadows in the Archer trade, has struck out 24 in 24 innings, has a 1.13 ERA and renders the temporary loss of Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell to a  toe injury quite palatable.

Heck, young right-hander Yonny Chirinos might soon graduate from the “Opener” plan and become a bona fide starter. He’s posted a 3.26 ERA and 19 strikeouts in 19 innings of starter/follow-the-Opener work.

For now, they have three traditional starters and two days of openings. It is a far different look from the greatest teams in franchise history: the 2008 squad that won 97 games and the AL pennant and the 2010 team that won 96 games behind Cy Young runner-up David Price. Those teams beat back the Red Sox and Yankees for division titles, a tall order for this group given those teams won 108 and 100 games, respectively, in 2018.

The process really starts Friday at Tropicana Field, with the first of six games in 10 days against the defending champions.

“They’re off to a really good start, but you have to keep it up,” says Longoria, a rookie in 2008. “If we were halfway through the season, I’d be feeling a lot more confident.

“Obviously, you want to be in the position they’re in now, but in that division, in particular, you’ve got to keep the pedal to the metal.”

Or the barrel to the ball.