The Rays Never Played A Home Game In The World Series

The Tampa Bay Rays have been dogged in their pursuit of excellence without extravagance, a process that is now two decades along and which has been hugely successful, provided your wall calendar is missing the months of October and November. They have mastered the technique of buying low, selling at an advantageous price, then rebuilding by buying low again so fully that they have convinced many of the league’s other owners that theirs is the one true path. They have beaten baseball’s mythical salary cap by staying below whatever it would be through simple discipline—as in, refusal to pay market-rate big-league salaries—and industry-leading player development. Good for them; they win a lot of ballgames most summers, and the owners meeting every winter. The ring for that must be enormous.

But the Rays received a harsh education in this World Series, and not merely by being eradicated in five games by the Milwaukee Brewers. Other than the 12th inning of Game 4, the Rays left no footprint on the series; in every inning played before midnight in the Eastern Time Zone, they were the inferior team. They were overwhelmed by the Brewers’ superior bullpen, the off-brand heroism of Cooper Pratt and Sal Frelick, and the more predictable heroism of William Contreras and Jackson Chourio. The difference between the best team in baseball and the best team in the American League was exactly as advertised.

That’s not the problem the Rays face today, though. There is little shame in losing as they did, because the Brewers were the better team when the series began as well as when it ended. Someone finishes second every year. We know this. We checked.