Record: 34-20 (21-7 for the month)
1st place AL East, 7 games up on Toronto.
What a month! If you recall April saw the Rays in a team-wide batting slump while the pitching was brilliant. In May the pitching remained brilliant and the bats woke up, looking more like the #1 offense they were last season. As a result they pulled off an 11-game turnaround in the standings, going from 4 out of first to 7 up (it did help Toronto was a miserable 10-18 and nobody else in the division has a winning record). And the great month was despite a series of injuries that occurred about midway through as we lost our top lefty relievers
Garrett Cleavinger (for a month) and
Jovani Moran (for the season) on consecutive days and our superlative second-year shortstop
Carson Williams torn an abdominal muscle and will be out until late June. To replace them we added a couple of lefties with swingman
Jordan Wicks coming up from Durham and short reliever
Andrew Nardi claimed on waivers from Philly.
Despite having a tough year at the plate (.213 BA/.289 OBP)
Mason Auer still leads MLB in steals.
When we last checked in a month ago those offensive numbers almost all had ranks in double digits so you can see how far we've come. Averaging 5 runs/game isn't truly eye-popping but that's more than enough to go 21-7 with a staff that continues to dominate like this one (2.86 team ERA).
Speaking of those offensive numbers, here's how the hitters fared in May:
Sorted here by OPS. Our core young star trio of Wander, Elly and Chourio really carried the team this month and only Langeliers and Auer had poor months, although Auer was productive when he did get hits (15 RBI & 16 SB).
Kevin Alcantara took over from
Brock Jones in LF and was very effective when playing, and Jones himself got hot in a few games at the end of the month, homering in consecutive ones to boost his OPS in limited at-bats.
Thomas Saggese was also called up with the Williams injury (technically he was called when Jones was briefly demoted just before) and acquitted himself decently.
Until
Seranthony Dominguez no longer pitches for this team I have to open the pitching stats page in a browser because the length of his name messes up the spacing in the game reports. That aside it was another fine month of pitching with Taj regaining his Cy Young form of last year and
Camilo Doval pitching like the lockdown closer he should be instead of his up-and-down 2026.
Waylin Santana came back to earth thanks to some problems with the longball, which was also an issue for
Shane McClanahan, but those are minor nits.
Fernando Costume also proved to be human when he gave up a homer in his last appearance of the month but he's been lights-out otherwise.
Joe Quelch is just about ready for a recall but Alcantara and Jones seem to have LF covered for now and the team is winning, and nor would I want to start his arbitration clock sooner than necessary.
Joel Diaz has not pitched well since going back to Durham when Jeffrey Springs returned and he's in danger of being surpassed as our top MLB-ready pitching prospect by
Braxton Beal, a 3rd-round pick out of college last year who's already thriving at Durham. Beal is probably a 4th starter at best but could be the next call-up in a pinch. He's not show here because he's lost rookie eligibility but
Junior Caminero didn't pout after going back to Durham, hitting well there.
So things are looking quite good now that the bats have woken up, and although 2/3 of the season remains I'd like to think we won't blow a 7-game division lead.
Also this happened during the month:
