Disappointed by loss, young
PHILADELPHIA — J.P. Howell wept, while some of his teammates spoke barely above a whisper. Through all of the disappointment, the Tampa Bay Rays made one thing clear: They arrived this season.
"It's powerful what we got done this year," manager Joe Maddon said after the AL champions bowed out of the World Series in five games Wednesday night. "And I know, from my perspective, this is just the beginning."
A year after finishing with the worst record in baseball, the young Rays pulled off one of the most improbable turnarounds in major league history. On the way to a franchise-best 97 wins, Maddon's bunch showed it doesn't take a large payroll to field a winner.
Including the playoffs, Tampa Bay won 39 more games than in 2007.
The team dropped the "Devil" from its nickname, took on new team colors and uniforms and said goodbye to a decade of futility in which Tampa Bay finished last in the AL East in nine of 10 seasons.
Not only did they outlast the big-spending Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees to win the division, but they belied their inexperience to continue prospering in October, long after skeptics figured they'd run out of gas.
"They kept believing in themselves to the point they were disappointed they didn't win this thing," principal owner Stuart Sternberg said after Wednesday night's 4-3 Series-clinching loss to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Howell, 0-2 in the Series, gave up the go-ahead run in the seventh inning, and Philadelphia's bullpen closed out Game 5, which picked up in the bottom of the sixth following a two-day suspension because of rain.
"They never counted themselves out at any time from the month of February on," Sternberg said. "They really believed, even down three games to one, playing with three less outs, giving up the homefield advantage — they felt extraordinarily confident that they were going to bring this back to St. Petersburg ... and win this thing."
The Rays did not play as well as they expected in the World Series, however they didn't make excuses for the shoddy defense, shaky pitching and lack of timely hitting.
Instead, Maddon focused on what they did well, and how that ties into a promising future.
In Games 2 and 3, the Rays scored eight runs, just one of them on a hit. Pushing four runs home on ground outs and scoring one each on a sacrifice fly, safety squeeze bunt and throwing error delighted the manager.
"We need to continue to grow. There are a lot of things we have to do better," Maddon said. "I'm into the little things. ... This series really validates a lot of the concepts we have put out there."
