The Rays beat the Red Sox 5-1 Saturday to extend their winning streak to seven games. It may be too little too late as they are 20 1/2 games out of the division title, 13 1/2 games out of the first wild card slot, and nine games out of the second wild card slot. With a .531 winning percentage, however, they are better than the Nationals and the same as the Dodgers, two teams that were supposed to be pretty good. The Rays were among the teams supposedly tanking this season, but instead are playing very well.

There is little evidence that much luck figured in the Rays record. Their runs scored and allowed indicate 68 wins instead of their actual total of 69. Part of this comes from being innovative. The Rays played 42 games in which their starter threw no more than two innings. While not all of those were openers, I suspect most of them were. The Rays are 21-21 in those games. If a team can get a .500 record from the back of their rotation, that’s a very good thing. So while on the surface, the strategy has not yielded a huge number of wins, it has allowed the front line pitching on the team to move the Rays well over .500.

The Rays did a good job of signing veterans, then flipping them when they played well. Denard Span and Wilson Ramos hit well for the team, and now they are in pennant races the the Rays are a little more stocked in the minors.

This continues to be a shoestring organization, like the Athletics of the Moneyball era, that does a lot with very little. We’ll see if they have a miracle in them.