Rays crash the party in AL East

It's nothing new for the Red Sox and Yankees to find themselves locked in a tight race at the All-Star break. They've come to expect it. What they aren't used to seeing is somebody else in the mix. But they have an interloper this time around: the 55-39, second-place, Wild Card-leading Tampa Bay Rays.

They're baseball's best team story, and they're one of baseball's best teams.

For starters
• Rays crash the party in AL East
• Fans aflutter over Cubs' chances
• Sox make formidable repeat threat
• First half full of surprises
• Midyear standings guarantee nothing
• Bauman: Parity name of the game in '08
• Possible second-half surprises

• Roundtable: Who gets traded?

• Roundtable: The NL Central

But a recent slide by the Rays started a rain of told-you-sos. People who had embraced the upstarts were suddenly writing them off after a bad week. It's understandable, given the franchise's history. But it's probably premature.

The arguments come in two flavors. Tampa Bay's youth invites skepticism as to whether the club will wither in a pennant race. The end-of-half slump suggests to some that they were never that good, and now they're enduring a correction. Neither really holds that much water, though.

Besides, the Rays do a lot of things well, and balance is always a good thing. They're fourth in the American League in runs allowed and seventh in runs scored. They play drastically improved defense, and the turnaround in their bullpen from 2007 to 2008 has been historic. There's no unit of this club that it's clear will be exploited down the stretch.

"I think their bullpen, for me, is the biggest difference," said Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay. "When we used to play them in the past, you'd look to get to the sixth or seventh inning and you had a chance to win. It's been different this year. They have new guys down there that make it a seven- or eight-inning game. They've really shortened the game."

Their on-field weaknesses, then, have been shored up. The questions seem to be about vaguer notions, like whether the club will fade for one reason or another -- that reason often being youth and/or inexperience. Recent history indicates there's nothing inherent in youth that dictates a second-half fade. In fact, the past several years show plenty of counterexamples.

According to the "Team Age" metric used by Baseball-Reference.com, the Rays have an average batting team age of 26.9 years and a pitching age of 27.6. That's certainly young, but far from unprecedented. They're young, but they're not babies. Over the past seven years, 30 teams have finished the season with both their batting and pitching ages at 28 years or younger.

(The formula is based on players' ages at midseason, so the calculation is not skewed by the fact that every Ray will be older in three months than he is now.)

"I think after you get a few years in, you're not so young anymore," argues Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek. "[Carl] Crawford is on, what, his seventh year? If they had a lot of first-year guys, [it would be different]. But guys are in their third and fourth years."

The 2007 Diamondbacks (team ages of 26.6 and 28.0), the 2003 Marlins (27.7 and 26.3) and 2001 A's (27.3 and 28.0) all surged in the second half to make the playoffs. All posted significantly better records after the break.

On the flip side, the 2001 Twins (26.2 and 27.4) nosedived in the second half. But no other young team in recent years that was a serious contender has fallen off like that.

"The only thing that happens as a younger player is a lot of times when you go through struggles, it's harder to get out of them," said Red Sox outfielder J.D. Drew. "You overthink the situation a little bit. But I think as far as holding up, it seems like they should have the advantage."

Last year's Diamondbacks present an interesting parallel in a few ways. They were a team that many people saw coming, but not necessarily so soon. They were athletic, with solid starting pitching and a shutdown bullpen.

And they followed a 47-43 first half with a 43-29 second half.

The question the Rays, like every potential playoff team, will have to answer is not whether they're experienced enough or old enough or tough enough. It's whether they're good enough. Nobody backs into a playoff spot in the American League East. You have to finish ahead of the Red Sox or the Yankees, if not both.

"You look at Boston and New York, and one through nine, there are nine pretty good players who can make a difference," said Halladay, a veteran of plenty of attempts to catch the division's elite. "Other teams may look at one or two guys to carry a team, but these guys have eight or nine."

As one indicator, the Red Sox have a much better Pythagorean won-lost record than the Rays. Based on runs scored and allowed, you would expect the Red Sox to have a 3 1/2-game lead on the Rays -- and Pythagorean records tend to be excellent predictors of future success.

Then again, only the Red Sox, White Sox and A's have better expected records, and if those are the only teams that finish ahead of Tampa Bay, the Rays will play in October.

Another trend is that Tampa Bay has a much better home record (36-14) than road record (19-25), but has six more games on the road than at Tropicana Field after the break.

So there are warning lights. But there are also plenty of bright-green optimistic indicators. The Rays are outperforming their expected record, but not by a lot, and it may be sustainable due to their quality bullpen work. And there's no rule that says young teams have to spit the bit.

It's premature to say they will be there when the playoffs start. But they absolutely can be. To dismiss them, or expect them to fall to earth, would be a mistake.

"I think it's going to come down to the stretch," said Yankees manager Joe Girardi. "There's two teams in front of us, Boston and Tampa. They both have outstanding teams and I think it's going to go down to the end. I wouldn't be surprised if the division is decided by one game."