Well-rounded Rays have many ways to win

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.

PHILADELPHIA -- The Rays have won 96 games this season, so of course they’ve beaten a lot of teams. Twenty-seven of them, in fact. They’ve beaten every team in the Majors besides the Dodgers, who swept them in Los Angeles in June, and the Phillies, who they’ll face for the first time this weekend.

The Rays have proven throughout the season that they can beat their opponents in many different ways, but one reason they’re the top team in the American League this year is that they rarely beat themselves.

“They're built to stay in baseball games, right? It's a really hard group to pull away from. They can keep themselves in games,” president of baseball operations Erik Neander said. “Then, depending on how a game develops and what you've got to do to win it, there's a lot of different ways they can find that path to breaking through and getting a win.”

Indeed, the Rays can win games in a variety of ways. They can play small ball and manufacture runs. They can string together walks and singles. They can hit homers. And they can out-pitch just about anyone, with a deep rotation and a strong bullpen.

But one key trait that often gets overlooked is how they avoid self-inflicted mistakes. Consider these three statistics entering play on Thursday:

• Their hitters’ 18.6% strikeout rate is the lowest in the Majors.

• Their pitchers’ 6.8% walk rate is the lowest in the Majors.

• Their defensive efficiency ratio is .723, the highest in the Majors.

What does that mean?

They put the ball in play more than anyone, putting pressure on opposing defenses. They limit free baserunners better than anyone, forcing opposing lineups to hit their way on base. And they turn more balls in play into outs than anyone, not giving opponents extra outs to extend innings.

“That’s baseball,” utility man Ryan Vilade said.

“Keep the strikeouts low, don't walk guys and make all the plays on defense,” added second baseman Richie Palacios. “It's fundamentals, but for us, we take it seriously every day and make sure we're locked in on those to make sure that we're giving ourselves the best chance to win.”

In all three phases of the game, the Rays haven’t done their opponents any favors. That has been a huge factor in their overall success, especially in the close games Neander mentioned.

The Rays’ .641 winning percentage (25-14) in one-run games is the best in the Majors this season. So is their .638 winning percentage (60-34) in games decided by three runs or fewer.

“Close games are everything. You can't walk guys, and you've got to secure the baseball,” manager Kevin Cash said. “When outs are given, make sure you turn them into outs -- and we're as good as anybody at that.”

Before joining the Rays in a Trade Deadline deal last month, catcher Liam Hicks picked up on how “pesky” those traits made Tampa Bay. He recognized how the Rays’ defensive positioning and athleticism made it difficult to hit against them, and he noted that their lineup’s newfound refusal to strike out made it tough to game-plan against them behind the plate.

Now, he can appreciate all those elements of their style.

“It’s one thing to get beat by the other team, but it's another thing to beat yourself and look back after the game and feel like you could have won, but you'd beat yourself,” Hicks said. “That's definitely something this team avoids.”

The Rays’ penchant for putting the ball in play has been a new development this year, and it’s mostly been a product of their personnel. They have more position players whose games are built around contact and speed, none more so than Chandler Simpson, and they leaned into that by implementing more small-ball tactics than in previous years.

“We felt like we had the potential of being a little bit more of a contact-oriented offense. To say that we thought that it was going to [be such a change that] we would be leading [the league in contact rate], I don't know,” Cash said. “But watching these guys day in and day out, the way they compete in the at-bat, the way they make pitchers work, it makes a lot of sense.”

The focus on pitchers’ strike-throwing and reliable defense, however, is nothing new for the Rays. They have long valued premium defense, especially up the middle, and “racing to two strikes” has always been a key part of the message from pitching coach Kyle Snyder.

“It's trying to be fundamental. Control what you can control and make them beat you and not give other teams outs or give them baserunners. Make them earn everything they can, and make it hard for them to score,” shortstop Taylor Walls said. “We don't overlook the simple things or the basic things, and ultimately, we know that those plays matter as much as the great ones.”

The two concepts complement each other, too, as pitchers often say they feel more comfortable throwing strikes because they trust their defense to make plays behind them. Snyder noted that you can view the Rays’ MLB-low .261 batting average on balls in play as the product of good batted-ball luck or, as he does, “quality defense and quality defensive placement.”

“We find ways to instill confidence for each of the pitchers to put their stuff to work in the zone before two strikes and really just force guys to hit,” Snyder said. “We've done that always since I've been here, but the quality of great defense certainly helps me in that messaging and the power of the message so much so that we don't beat ourselves.”

And that’s helped them beat a lot of other teams.