This Ray's walks have allowed him to run

This story was excerpted from Adam Berry’s Rays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ST. PETERSBURG -- This spring, Jose Siri made it clear his main goal for the season was to get on base more often.

After that?

“If I get on base, I’m going to try to get on second base,” Siri said Sunday morning at Coors Field through interpreter Manny Navarro. “If I’m on second base, I’m going to try to get on third.”

So far, the speedy center fielder is doing what he set out to accomplish. Siri entered play on Tuesday with six walks, one shy of his highest monthly total last season, and he’s tied with Boston's Jarren Duran for the American League lead with six stolen bases -- already half as many as he recorded over 101 games a year ago.

Siri knows he only barely registered double-digit steals last season, which is hard to fathom for someone with such game-changing speed. He was one of the fastest players in baseball in 2023, according to Statcast, with his sprint speed clocking in at 29.7 feet per second. Yet he only stole 12 bags, and it’s not like he was caught stealing all the time, either, having only been thrown out three times.

“He’s got so much energy during the game, and he wants to use it. He wants to run,” said Rays first-base coach Michael Johns, who oversees the club’s baserunning and outfield work. “It’s our job to harness it in the right way, and he’s been great about it.”

The simplest explanation for Siri’s relatively limited running game last year? He wasn’t on first base often enough. Siri had a solid offensive season overall, bashing 25 homers and posting a 106 OPS+. But he hit just .222 with a .267 on-base percentage. That didn’t present him with as many chances to run as he’d have liked, and he didn’t feel like he did a good enough job taking advantage of the opportunities he did have.

“It’s something I’m going to do a little different,” he said.

What happened this weekend in Colorado was, indeed, quite different for Siri. He worked a career-high three walks (and stole a base) on Friday. He followed that up Saturday with two more walks and two more steals.

Before that, Siri had only recorded one multi-walk performance in 233 Major League games: a two-walk outing for the Astros on April 10, 2022. And Friday was just his second three-walk game as a professional baseball player, as he picked up a trio of free passes for Double-A Chattanooga on April 23, 2019.

Siri has still struck out in 15 of his 43 plate appearances, about the same pace as his 35.7% strikeout rate last year. And he’s still looking to do damage at the plate, given the power he possesses. But Siri getting on base the way he did in Denver creates another dynamic to Tampa Bay’s lineup.

“I just told him he’s having really good at-bats. He’s not expanding,” manager Kevin Cash said Sunday. “Maybe he is working really hard on seeing the ball, because he knows as well as anybody when he gets on first base, there’s a good chance that he’s going to put pressure on a pitcher and a catcher to be at third base in a couple pitches.”

Baserunning has been an area of emphasis for the Rays as a team, with Johns boiling down a wealth of information from the front office staff and doing what he can to prepare players in advance with the most important point or two they’ll need on the basepaths.

Siri has taken well to that instruction, and he’s letting his legs do the rest.

“Siri’s been awesome. He listens. He’s not running just to run,” Johns said. “He’s running in smart situations -- and he can fly.”