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.

PITTSBURGH -- The Trade Deadline is on July 30, about 5 1/2 weeks from now. Although it seemed like the entire baseball media industry shifted into Trade Deadline mode around June 1, sorting out buyers and sellers and dreaming up trades, it’s still a long way off.

Consider: Friday night is the Rays’ 76th game of the season. On July 30, 50 minutes after this year’s Deadline, Tampa Bay will play its 107th game. A lot can change between now and then, and the Rays will take that time to figure out what this team can be.

But the Rays (36-39) are in an unusual place after so many years of success and five straight postseason appearances. They enter Friday in fourth place in the American League East. It’s been more than a month since they’ve owned a winning record. Their minus-70 run differential, among other statistics, suggests they’re lucky to be only five games out of the last AL Wild Card spot with just one team (the Red Sox, who are 40-35) between them and the Twins.

Other front offices see all that, too, and understand what it might mean.

“Unfortunately, when you’re a few games under .500 this time of year, and you have talent, the inbound calls tend to be a little bit more active. So that just comes with the territory,” Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander said a week ago on 95.3 WDAE. “There is some urgency to get this turned around, and that doesn’t necessarily mean making moves. I think that means pouring everything we have into getting our established players back on track. We’re seeing signs of that.”

Indeed, a major reason the Rays have stumbled so badly is the underperformance of their key hitters. Yandy Díaz and Randy Arozarena were not themselves early on. Brandon Lowe and Josh Lowe were injured. Jose Siri started hot, struggled and lost playing time. Harold Ramírez lost his spot on the roster.

But look at their offensive leaders in June. There’s Arozarena at the top, with a .945 OPS. Brandon Lowe has four homers and leads the team with 13 RBIs. Siri is mashing homers and slugging doubles. Díaz is hitting for average and getting on base.

That hasn’t fixed everything, though. The Rays are 18th in the Majors this month in runs (70, tied with the Royals) and OPS (.694), despite most of their stars’ turnarounds, and they’re 8-9 overall heading into this weekend’s series at PNC Park. But it could reinforce Tampa Bay’s belief in its roster.

“I think when you have players … that have the track records that they do, if those are the ones struggling, you’re kind of waiting for it to turn around. But odds are, at some point, they will,” Neander said recently. “You’re counting on guys doing what they’ve done for a long time, and that probably lends itself to having a little more optimism looking ahead than asking for players to contribute in ways that they never have.”

Additionally, the Rays could get stronger before the Trade Deadline. Left-hander Jeffrey Springs is making rehab starts. Young right-hander Shane Baz is back on turn at Triple-A Durham. Top prospect Junior Caminero will be back at some point, although it’s too soon to say how the time he’s missed due to a left quad strain will affect his timetable.

Maybe all of that will come together with strong pitching and defense, and the Rays will reel off a bunch of wins over the next month. That’s the optimistic view.

But the odds are against them. Literally, in one sense, as FanGraphs gives the Rays just a 15.8% chance to make the postseason at this point. They’re already 14 games out in the AL East, so they’re essentially playing for a spot in a Wild Card Series.

Tampa Bay's remaining strength of schedule is the toughest in baseball, and the club is just 11-21 this season against teams with winning records. The Rays' longest winning streak is only five games, and they haven’t been more than three games above .500 all season. And they’re not the only team hanging around in this position.

There are five other teams in the AL within 6 1/2 games of a playoff spot, and 13 of 15 teams in the National League -- everyone but the Rockies and Marlins -- can realistically say they’re contending. If the Rays are on the outside looking in come July 30, with a chance to improve their chances to win a World Series in 2025 and beyond, it would make plenty of sense to be opportunistic and capitalize on a seller’s market.

But there’s still plenty of time left, and a lot of games to be played, before the Rays must make that decision. Right now, the urgency is on the field.

“The bottom line is we’ve got to start winning more games, and we’ve got to find a way to do that over the next six weeks or so,” Neander told WDAE. “We believe in this group, and we’re stubborn in that and want to do our best to see it through while not being oblivious to where we are.”