The final regular season standings & batting leaders:
Last week when I posted the standings & leaders, I speculated most of Royce Lewis's league-leading WAR came from defense, but one thing I discovered in the interim was that Lewis ended the season with 61 (!) doubles, the 6th-highest total in MLB history and only 6 off Earl Webb's record.
Rays team stats:
A lot of firsts, and what's really something is how this team can be 13th in the AL in walks yet still place 1st in OBP. That's some hittin' there. We were better in the second half in 1-run games (although not so much better that we finished 5 wins short of our Pythagorean record), and much better against lefties, when mid-season we were below .500. And it was also interesting how we ended up with identical home and road records after we struggled some at the Trop in the second half but played much better on the road. The defense remains mediocre but we're picking nits here.
Here are the individual stats:
Triston Casas, whom I'm looking at to play 3B next season assuming Rafael Devers declines his player option for 2025, was pretty dreadful this year, with a lower WAR than Matt Manning who had one at-bat. Otherwise the question remains: why do I keep playing Seth Beer over Spencer Torkelson?
Nothing wrong with this staff.
The NL East tiebreaker game:
Will Toffey's 2-run HR in the 5th was the big hit here as Sandy Alcantara was excellent (7 6 1 1 3 6). The Braves will now host the Dodgers in the wild card game while the Mets will await the winner of that game.