Formidable young Rays are built for long haul

HOUSTON -- When it was over, Kevin Kiermaier walked up to Rays vice president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom and gave him a hug.

“Hell of a roster you guys put together,” Kiermaier said. “Thank you.”

Game	Date	Result	Highlights
Gm 1	Oct. 4	HOU 6, TB 2	Watch
Gm 2	Oct. 5	HOU 3, TB 1	Watch
Gm 3	Oct. 7	TB 10, HOU 3	Watch
Gm 4	Oct. 8	TB 4, HOU 1	Watch
Gm 5	Oct. 10	HOU 6, TB 1	Watch

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With four elimination games in nine days (not to mention the necessary 17-8 September, when losing games and ground in the complicated American League Wild Card chase really wasn’t an option), that roster was put to the ultimate test. And while the Rays were bounced from this particular October tournament with Thursday’s 6-1 loss to a monster named Gerrit Cole and the Astros in the decisive Game 5 of the AL Division Series at Minute Maid Park, you couldn’t help but feel we’re going to hear from them again.

Beyond the talent, contractual control and flexibility of the roster is a pedigree that can only be built by going through the kind of gauntlet this ballclub experienced over the past month, and especially in the past week.

“Tonight stings, it really stings,” Bloom said in a locker room where the sound of back pats and hand slaps was prominent. “But what the group accomplished gives us the optimism that we can do this for a while, and hopefully build on this.”

While there are moments Tampa Bay would certainly love to have back (the ball that fell between Brandon Lowe and Austin Meadows in Game 1, the consecutive outs with runners on the corners and the tying run at the plate in the ninth inning of Game 2, the Tyler Glasnow pitch-tipping that might have helped Houston in Game 5), no one could really say that the Rays beat themselves, that they shrunk in the spotlight.

Sometimes, Cole outpitches your guy twice in six days. There’s no real shame in that.

There is, however, growth in that. And in all of 2019. After falling tantalizingly short of a postseason berth in '18, the Rays went out and won 96 games in the AL East this season despite getting only 167 2/3 innings from their two best young starters (reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and Glasnow) and losing the key bats of Lowe and Yandy Díaz for long stretches mid push. Tampa Bay also almost totally rebuilt its bullpen on the fly.

Watching this series, with Glasnow still finding his footing just a month after returning from a right forearm strain and Snell limited in workload just two months after arthroscopic surgery on his left elbow, you couldn’t help but wonder what this might have looked like were those two in full gear.

You also couldn’t help but feel this team could be an absolute load if those two are healthy next year in a rotation still featuring Charlie Morton (with a 146 ERA+, he’ll likely finish in the top five of the AL Cy Young Award voting) and in front of a bullpen with sickening stuff that gives the opposition a wide variety of looks.

The Rays have only three pending free agents -- Avisaíl García, Travis d’Arnaud and Eric Sogard. García is a darling of the Statcast crowd because he throws hard, runs hard and hits hard, and his solid season (20 homers, 25 doubles, 111 OPS+) should make him a more attractive free agent than he was last offseason, when Tampa Bay got him on an incentive-laden $3.5 million contract. d’Arnaud had some big hits for this club (and was a saving grace given how poorly the Mike Zunino addition has worked out), and Sogard was a worthwhile trade pickup. But it’s not as if major cornerstones are potentially going out the door here.

No, the cornerstones are all in place. The Morton-Snell-Glasnow group and the frightening (in a good way) bullpen, with a pitching pipeline that is routinely strong. Meadows coming off a breakout year (.922 OPS, 143 OPS+). Tommy Pham providing a beautiful blend of power, speed and strike-zone discipline. Willy Adames emerging as a genuine dual threat. Díaz no longer putting all his 100-mph missles on the ground. Lowe emerging, Ji-Man Choi walking, top prospect (No. 1 in all of baseball, per MLB Pipeline) Wander Franco potentially looming. While we know better than to expect heavy spending from the club that had the lowest payroll in baseball this season, it’s not going to take heavy offseason lifting to keep the Rays in contention.

Certainly, though, you’d love to see Tampa Bay go out and get another bat, after efforts last winter to land Edwin Encarnación as a stabilizing middle-of-the-order presence came up short.

We’ve learned something about the Rays the past couple of weeks. A team that is routinely projected by the computers to get to October did exactly that, and it did it by winning multiple must-wins. We saw the Trop lit, the upper-deck tarps removed and the joyful noise that can be made when a close-knit and likable group reaches its potential, beating up on Zack Greinke and Justin Verlander in the process.

“We all got a taste of this,” Kiermaier said. “We all got a taste of what it’s like. This will motivate guys to want to be better this offseason and work on their craft in whatever way is needed.”

Get beaten twice by Cole? You tip your cap and head home. But while the Rays have exited October, they’re not going away.