Rays' mega offense is thanks to a new plan at the plate

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.

In the eighth inning Thursday night at Yankee Stadium, Josh Lowe caught a first-pitch, middle-middle curveball from reliever Ryan Weber out front and clobbered it. The breaking ball came in at 75.3 mph and flew off Lowe’s bat at 107.3 mph, according to Statcast, sailing a projected 435 feet over the Yankees bullpen.

The majestic blast was Lowe’s eighth home run of the season and the most striking moment of another big night at the plate for the Rays, who have built the best lineup in the Majors so far this season by committing to and executing a plan they laid out months ago.

Back in Spring Training, hitting coach Chad Mottola and Co. made their approach the focal point. They stressed the importance of being selective, controlling counts, making better swing decisions, understanding which pitches they can handle and getting themselves in position to hit them.

If that sounds like exactly what the Rays have been doing, well, it is.

“I really give Motor, [assistant hitting coaches] Brady North, Dan DeMent and [process and analytics coach Jonathan Erlichman] a lot of credit. I mean, they were hellbent on getting points across in Spring Training,” manager Kevin Cash said. “The guys received them, and it continued and continued, and it has kind of taken a life of its own.”

The results are quite impressive. The Rays have scored 239 runs and hit 76 homers, most in the Majors. Their hard-hit rate is 45.3%, up 6.6% from last year. Their barrel rate is 11.5%, nearly double what it was last season. MLB.com’s Brent Maguire recently published a nice look at more numbers behind Tampa Bay’s surprisingly scorching start at the plate.

How have they improved so much without changing personnel? Taylor Walls explained it well last week, and it sounded a lot like what Mottola has been saying since Spring Training.

“Just picking our spots to be aggressive, getting in counts and taking the pitches early and getting in good hitters' counts later in the count and taking a chance and getting the [bat] head out,” Walls said. “I feel like that's kind of been it, having a solid approach, knowing what we're looking for, doing our work before the game happens and paying attention to what we're going to see that game and being on time for it.”

A few more numbers to consider: The Rays lead the Majors in homers (18), slugging percentage (.882) and OPS (1.329) on the first pitch, even though their first-pitch swing rate is right around the league average. They also lead baseball in homers (32), slugging percentage (.656) and OPS (1.153) when ahead in the count.

Those are the situations when pitchers, either looking for strike one or trying to get back in the count, are most likely to throw something over the plate. It’s the best time to take an aggressive swing. And more than any other club so far this season, the Rays are doing damage on pitches in the zone.

That’s what their coaches preach, and that’s what their hitters practice. They review their swing decisions the day after each game. Coaches praise players for, as Mottola put it, “the quality of the at-bat, not the outcome of the at-bat.” For the Rays, good decisions are leading to good results.

“As highly competitive individuals, you never want to go out there and say, 'I can't hit this pitch well.' You always want to believe that, 'I can hit anything, and I will hit any pitch,’” Brandon Lowe said. “That's just not the reality of it, so I think understanding what it is you can and can't handle is probably the first thing.”

“I think that the plan has really helped. We work on it even in the cage, just being more selective and hitting the pitch that you want to hit,” added Luke Raley. “You can be selective and hunt a zone and get your best swing off in that zone. Just like anything else, you put in the work for it, and the results show.”

Mottola said the way last season ended, scoring one run over 24 innings as they were swept out of the American League Wild Card Series in Cleveland, “stuck with” the Rays’ hitters and made them more amenable to the coaches’ messaging. They all liked what they saw in Spring Training, and it’s carried over in a big way into the first six weeks of the season.

“The way they’re performing,” Mottola said, “it’s a pretty easy message to keep delivering.”