Daily Loaf

One of the keys to the Rays’ surprise success last year was how frequently they won close games. That trend not only contributed to a winning season, but made it an exciting season as well.

This year, the St. Pete ball club is trending the opposite. The Rays have lost six games by one run, two games by two runs. They’ve won three games by one run and two games by two runs. That’s 13 of the team’s 33 games we’ll categorize as close. Exiting, yes, but their record in those games is 5-8.

The Rays have not performed well in the clutch so far in their 15-18 campaign — be it a bullpen collapse, starting pitching that digs the team an early hole, the inability to score a crucial run when circumstances say they should (e.g. man on third, nobody out) or a key defensive miscue.

And there’s this: If only the Rays could have a more even distribution of runs. What fan hasn’t had this feeling when the Rays pile up the runs in a game? — Hey, save some for tomorrow.

In games in which the Rays have scored eight runs or more and won, they have followed with a loss six times and won twice.

Baffling. Wouldn’t a 14-run outburst give the offense confidence for the next game?

All of this might just be statistical anomalies so common to baseball.

Here’s another one: The Rays have the Major League leader in home runs (Pena, 13), RBI (Longoria, 44, 10 more than anyone else) and stolen bases (Crawford, 22, without being thrown out). And yet the club is three games below .500.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of last year’s Rays was that no one player had what could be considered a career year (no one even batted .300) — with the possible exception of Longoria, who won Rookie of the Year. (His performance in ’09, though, looks to easily eclipse his first campaign.)

In 2008, the Rays succeeded as a team, with a variety of players stepping up and delivering in clutch situations. That’s not happening nearly as much this year.

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