Six names on the first place Rays

We're at the half way mark and the surprise team of the year is the first place Tampa Bay Rays.

Wow. They're not even fooling around like the NL West where the division leading D-Backs are hovering at .500. We're talking the real deal, leading the league in winning percentage, World Series contender, Tampa. Bay. Rays. Just wow.

This is like that year when the Nets transformed from perennial losers to the Jason Kidd show featuring the Nets. No one was comfortable with the idea that the Nets were good at basketball. Not even Nets fans. Likewise, the AL East is slowly coming to grips with the fact that there is a real tangible possibility that neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox will win the division. That hasn't happened since 1997 when the Orioles edged New York by two games for the title.

So how are they doing it, you ask? What is the difference between this Rays team and the Devil Rays of last season? I've got six names for you: three hitters and three pitchers that are keeping Tampa Bay on Top.

Your first instinct would be to say, "Oh, their big names must be having killer seasons." Wrong. In fact the opposite is true. The Rays big three (B.J. Upton, Carl Crawford, and Carlos Pena) are all having much worse years than they did in 2007. When looking at OPS, the best quick and dirty measure of hitting performance, Upton is down from .894 last year to .818 this year, Crawford down from .820 to .724, and Pena a woeful drop down from 1.037 to .769.

In 2007, the Rays as a team finished eighth in the AL in Runs Scored (782, 4.8 per game) and fifth in OPS (.769). The team numbers this year actually don't differ all that much. At the end of June, Tampa Bay ranked sixth in the AL in both Runs Scored (387, 4.7 per game) and OPS (.759). If their big three have fallen off that much from last season, who's picked up the slack?

Here we start with the six key names for the Rays. The first guy on the list is former Rookie of the Year, Eric Hinske. He leads the Rays in OPS (.880) and is second in home runs (13). Oh yeah, his 2008 salary? $800,000! Talk about a good pick up for GM Andrew Friedman.

The next guy filling the holes is 24 year old catcher Dioner Navarro. He was originally a Yankees prospect before being dealt to the Dodgers in the three way trade in which New York acquired Randy Johnson. In 2006 the Rays traded catcher Toby Hall and pitcher Mark Hendrickson for Navarro, Pitcher Jae Seo, and outfielder Justin Ruggiano. After an unimpressive year and a half in a Rays uniform, Navarro seems to be living up to his potential. This year he ranks second on the team in OBP (.366) and has driven in 31 runs in 59 games. That’s certainly an improvement from his .286 OBP and 44 RBIs in 119 games in 2007.

The last hitter I will mention here is considered to be the future of the franchise. Evan Longoria is making an excellent case for RoY honors. He leads his team in home runs (15), RBI's (47), and is second on the team in OPS (.864). Also, his eminent ascent to the role of starting third-basemen moved Akinori Iwamura to second which allowed the Rays the freedom to deal Ty Wigginton to the Astros in return for...

Dan Wheeler: our first pitcher on the list of six. Wheeler was originally a Tampa Bay draft pick in 1996, but played his best years in a Houston uniform. In both 2005 and 2006 he pitched over 70 innings out of the bullpen and posted ERA's of 2.21 and 2.52 respectively. He had an awful start to the season in 2007 before joining the Rays where he had an awful end to it as well. His ERA between the two teams over 74.2 innings was 5.30.

The most telling number from that campaign was the 11 homers he gave up (my rule of thumb for a good amount of home runs allowed is 10 innings per HR). This year he is has only given up 4 home runs in 38.1 innings (much better), and that along with his usual low walk total and some good defense has him sporting an ERA of 1.88. Wheeler should be considered one of the premier set up men in the game and he is the key reliever bridging the gap from the starters to...

Troy Percival. OLD! Here we have a 38 year old flame throwing corpse of a closer who probably thought it would be cool to pull a Wade Boggs, go into semi-retirement, and sign with the Rays. Little did he know he'd be notching saves for the best team in the game. He's not the young man he used to be, but I'll take his 3.54 ERA, and 30 K's in 28 innings any day of the week. Especially when you consider that Al Reyes was closing for the Devil Rays last year with his 4.90 ERA and 13 HR's allowed in 60.2 innings!

The last piece of the puzzle for Tampa Bay is a starting pitcher. No, not Kazmir. He's always been lights out. Shields is about where he was last year as well. Not even Edwin Jackson and Andy Sonnanstine are doing remarkably better if you compare home runs, walks, and strikeouts. The big difference in the rotation is in what they're getting out of Matt Garza.

Garza was acquired from the Twins in the offseason with Jason Bartlett and Eduardo Morin for Delmon Young, Jason Pridie, and Brendan Harris. Garza completes the picture. He gives the Rays a serious upgrade over the collective trash of Jason Hammel, Casey Fosum, Jae Seo, and J.P. Howell that served as their fifth starter in 2007. Now with five pitchers who can go seven deep most times out, they can save their key relievers for only the most crucial spots. A tired bullpen is always a recipe for disaster.

This is the real key to the difference between the 2007 Devil Rays and the 2008 Rays (aside from the overly PC name change): the pitching, particularly the relief pitching. In 2007, the Rays had a bullpen ERA of 6.16! All they had to do was get that down to 5.00 and they would see a dramatic improvement in their winning percentage, but they've done better than that. This year their bullpen ERA is at 3.21. Opponents are hitting a measly .213 against Tampa Bay after the starters leave.

Barring any major injuries, this team is bound for the post season. The scary part is that they are built for the playoffs: three good starters, a lights out bullpen, good speed, and solid defense. The only thing they are lacking is that game changing bat, but if Crawford, Upton, and Pena start playing the way they were last year, we could be looking at a true World Series contender.