The Rays are 13-0 and on the verge of history ... but how?

The Rays were always going to be good this season, but historic? Nobody saw that coming. Sitting at 13-0 so far, Tampa Bay is one win away from sitting solo atop the best start to the season since 1900. A combination of great play, surprising performances, and a favorable schedule have combined to put the Rays in this position — but let’s dive deeper into what’s made this win streak tick.

It’s almost impossible to fathom the payroll disadvantage the Rays manage to compete with each season. In 2023 they’re one of the cheapest teams in baseball, fielding a team with $73.1M. Meanwhile, three of their AL East opponents, the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Red Sox, have an average payroll of $222.6M. Money doesn’t automatically mean you’re better, but it affords a huge margin of error where an underperforming star can easily get mitigated by several other players on a roster.

Tampa Bay is thriving in spite of this small margin and are legitimately incredible.

Simply put: They’re absolutely dominating almost every phase of the game. As it stands Tampa Bay leads Major League Baseball in numerous statistical areas.

It’s a pretty simple equation. If you’re scoring at the best rate in baseball and allowing the fewest runs, you’ll win. However, it’s a little more granular than that. The biggest question the Rays had entering the season was Wander Franco. Always tight-pursed, the Rays spent big to keep Franco — signing him to an 11-year, $182M contract. Spending over $16M a season on a player when you only spend $73M on an entire team was a major gamble, especially considering Franco has missed significant time with injuries over the last two seasons.

Keeping Franco was a very un-Rays-like move, but so far it’s paid off in a major way. Not only is he batting .321 on the season with 12 RBIs, but his early season 1.0 WAR ranks him among the very best players in all of baseball.

Franco is part of the picture when it comes to Tampa Bay’s bats. The other is Randy Arozarena, who has emerged as a force in his fifth season. Always a very good player, Arozarena has exploded so far with 16 RBIs in 13 games, and is on pace to shatter every career record he’s posted by late-July.

Meanwhile the team’s pitching is on fire. Starters Drew Rasmussen, Jeffrey Springs, and Shane McClanahan are all averaging under 2.0 ERA — with Rasmussen and Springs in particular being absolutely unhittable so far.

Don’t get me wrong, the Rays have been incredible — but it’s disingenuous to look at their record and performance in isolation, without taking into account their opponents. So far Tampa Bay has opened the season with series against the Red Sox, A’s, Nationals, and Tigers — easily four of the worst teams in baseball, with a combined record of 15-36 this season.

That’s the perfectly soft start needed to run up a record like this, and while it absolutely requires execution — the real test starts tonight. On Friday evening the Rays head to Toronto to face the Jays, who are 8-5 this season, second behind Tampa Bay in the AL East. It’s absolutely a winnable game, but it has to be noted that this is the only team with a winning record the Rays have faced this season.

Right now the Rays are tied with the 1982 Braves and 1987 Brewers, both of whom started 13-0 in their respective seasons. How this could project for the rest of Tampa Bay’s season is a bit of a mixed bag.

The Braves finished 89-73 on the season, winning the NL West before falling to the Cardinals 3-0 in the NLCS. St. Louis went on to win the World Series. The Braves didn’t manage to keep their hot streak going, and began to decline immediately following their 1982 heroics.

In 1987 the Brewers ended up 91-71, but this was only good for third in the AL East behind the Tigers and Blue Jays. They missed the postseason due to MLB’s limited four-team playoff format. This was a routine problem for the Brewers of the era, and they kept finishing third or fourth best in the division before their decline in the early 90s.

History will be settled tonight, starting at 7 p.m. ET when the Rays face the Blue Jays.