Collapsing Rays Remain Most Frustrating Team in MLB and They Seem Totally Done | ADAM BOMB

I've read far too many words about the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019, so what's 800 more?

Based on the way the baseball world has waxed rhapsodic about Tampa Bay's heroic march to third place and a Wild Card collapse this season, you'd assume they'd outsmarted the Yankees, using marked improvements at the margins to embody a "next man up" mentality in the wake of myriad pitching injuries.

Instead, they're the best example yet of how "being average" is the new market inefficiency in a world where the big boys in New York and Boston have co-opted their Moneyball philosophy and turned it into something unattainable.

With Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell out for the lion's share of the second half, key absences now seem to be catching up with Tampa, a team relying on 15 bounce-back performances too many. The Boston Red Sox have proven they're no behemoths in 2019, and yet...it somehow feels like the Rays now have even less pitching, and could easily slide behind the bashers at Fenway in another week or so.

Every pitcher feels like an opener these days. Every reliever feels like an also-ran. Every managerial decision feels like the wrong button was pressed.

Which brings us to Kevin Cash and Colin Poche, the two men who most embody my soft-boiling frustration at this franchise. Cash is known as the matchup guru who preceded Alex Cora, Aaron Boone, and Co. ever so slightly, being hired (along with similar figurehead AJ Hinch of the Astros) in 2014. He's a players' manager and an extremely calculated individual, whose trickeration often extends to lineup manipulations (sorry, Mr. Cora!) and bullpen matchup nightmares.

Which makes charades like Thursday's fifth inning against Houston all the more head-scratching.

Cash brought in Poche to protect a one-run lead in an absolute must-win game against Houston. He's an analytics darling to those who pore over peripherals, but to the layperson, he's simply a lefty with a sneaky fastball who can't seem to control it under pressure. His FIP was pretty excellent in this outing, too. In fact, his fielders rarely got involved, as he simply walked the entire city of Houston instead.

With runners on first and second and a one-run lead on the board, Poche walked Abraham Toro, the one freebie in Houston's lineup, on a full count. He then regrouped to...walk Robinson Chirinos on a full count. Tie game. At this point, everyone in the ballpark, at home, watching along on Facebook, or following the dots on mobile could tell that Poche simply didn't have it.

Everyone, of course, except for Kevin Cash.

With his lefty firmly over 30 pitches thrown, Cash stuck with him against Josh Reddick. What did he see? What did he know? Is "intentionally failing" a new high-level strategy I'm unaware of? On another 3-2 delivery, Poche missed high again, and Reddick began walking to first essentially while the ball was still in the lefty's hand. We all just...knew.

Nick Anderson then entered the game, and blew away George Springer with very little effort.

While it feels pedantic to focus so heavily on one singular inning (and by god, it IS pedantic!), that frame was entirely indicative of the negative mojo that's surrounded this team, for the better part of two weeks, as well as the bizarre decision-making that continues to fuel their backslide.

Poche is beloved by those in the secondary baseball media specifically because of how well he's been able to thrive on essentially just one pitch. That one pitch was not working AT ALL on Thursday, and he was still allowed to bleed himself dry. Why? Hubris? The unrelenting desire to do it the Rays' way?

I love analytics! It's revolutionized the game of baseball. I do not love allowing a pitcher with nothing to continue flopping his nothing towards home plate in the name of...science?

Though Tampa has a soft week coming up at home against Cleveland, Baltimore, and Toronto, and could vault right back into the Wild Card conversation by taking care of business, they've given me no indication they're prepared to do so, losing twice to the Orioles, twice to the Mariners, and once (nearly twice!) to Detroit last week.

A season spent reveling in random 162-game stretches on social media might be unraveling in reality right now. Tampa, a team built to compete every game, should know better than anyone how little cherry-picked statistics matter. They don't lead to banners...unless you're the Rays, and you raise a banner for everything.

You can't control the season's parameters. You can only control the narrative. And though they often receive universal praise for their almost-good-enough efforts, perhaps more attention should be paid to the murky waters these darlings are entering in the season's waning weeks.