The Tampa Bay Rays have spent plenty of October baseball hearing the same knock: the bats go quiet, and the rotation doesn’t hold up when it matters most. This time around, that old weakness looks a lot less likely to define them.
With the regular season heading into its final month, Tampa Bay sits in a far better spot than many expected. The Rays are leading the AL East behind a small-ball offense and a strong pitching staff, and that combination has turned them into a legitimate threat to make a deep playoff run.
The biggest difference from past Tampa Bay postseason teams is right in the rotation.
After winning the AL pennant in 2020, the Rays reached the playoffs three straight years but never got past the divisional series. The offense drew plenty of blame, but the bigger issue across those runs was starting pitching.
In 2020, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Charlie Morton formed a rotation that could go toe-to-toe with just about anybody. Since then, that kind of top-end power hasn’t been there.
The 2021 ALDS leaned on Drew Rasmussen and Shane Baz in huge spots, and it cost Tampa Bay. The 2022 AL Wild Card featured strong pitching, but the offense couldn’t score in a two-game sweep. Then came the 2023 AL Wild Card, when Zach Eflin and Tyler Glasnow struggled badly against a Texas lineup that went on to win it all.
Now the Rays look built differently.
Nick Martinez and Rasmussen, both Cy Young candidates, are at the front of the staff. Shane McClanahan is back as well, and the addition of Freddy Peralta only makes the group more dangerous. Peralta brings a track record as a playoff arm in Milwaukee, which gives Tampa Bay even more confidence in what it can throw out there in October.
That kind of rotation matters when the calendar flips to the postseason. Offenses can disappear.
Bullpens can crack. The teams that usually keep advancing are the ones with real aces who can control a series.
Last year, Yoshinobu Yamamoto showed that in World Series MVP fashion, and older examples like Madison Bumgarner’s run with the Giants proved the same point.
For Tampa Bay, the pieces are finally lining up. Rasmussen has emerged as the kind of dominant arm who can anchor a staff.
Martinez, at 35, has reinvented himself with a changeup that has fueled his best season yet and gives the Rays a strong Game 2 option. Behind them are McClanahan and Peralta, both proven playoff pitchers with plenty of big-game experience.
It’s the closest Tampa Bay has come to rebuilding that 2020-style rotation, and if the injury luck holds, this staff has the kind of ceiling that could carry the Rays just as far as they went six seasons ago.
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