Tampa Bay Rays EXCEED EXPECTATIONS in April & Set Pace for Possible Playoff HUNT

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The Rays and April on fire.

You are Lockdown Rays, your daily Tampa Bay Rays podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast

Network, your team every day.

He's Ulysses and Bruno, I'm Kevin Weiss, and we're pleased to be joined by Evan Klosski.

Back at it again, it's been a minute.

Has been lightning taking up some of my free time, but that's okay.

That's okay.

Indeed, we're going to get through a lot of stuff today, but first we're going to tell

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Later on today's show, we close out a fun Friday episode with baseball trivia and name

that war.

In a few minutes, Klosski on the clock is back in all its glory, but to start, the Rays

and the first month of baseball with an 18 and 12 record.

Surprisingly pleasant first 30 games for the Rays, 18 and 12 record.

However, Evan, they have not changed our predictions yet.

Kevin said 77, I said 78, it's a month of baseball.

We said, we need to see some more baseball to change our predictions, but have they changed

our predictions?

Sure, 70.

No, I mean, they're probably going to hang around 500, which is, I think, what I said at

the beginning of the season, you know, 81, 80, you know, on the most optimistic scale,

I think I said like 85 wins, pessimistic, thinking 75, 76 on the worst of it, despite everybody

who told me this was a 60 win team after week one, I'm confidently going to say they're

going to win more than 60, so this is still an imperfect team, but they have really

redeeming qualities and we're seeing the best of them right now.

I tend to believe they're walking a tightrope on how successful they can be, but at the

same point, and as I said, at the beginning of the season, throughout the year, I think

there's going to be more enjoyment watching this group on a night-to-night basis, even

though you're going to have to deal with the stench of one to two run performances from

the offense for, you know, a chunk of time during moms, that's just going to happen throughout

the season.

Five runs, do you know, the week in Cleveland, Kevin?

It's either it's either five or it's one, it's like, it's like, all five total, yeah,

and a one to series, right?

That's what I mean, like, you know, and there's some, I think there's some, there's some

like normalization that's happening, like last year, I think in a lot of those situations,

they weren't coming out on top of some of those games, you know, you win one nothing, you're

not going to win most games that you score one run, but hey, you stole one there, five runs

in a series that's, you know, kind of been my greatest fear, entering the season that

we'd see a lot more of that, but you stole kind of two wins out of that performance when

theoretically maybe that sets up for a sweep.

So you can't go back in time and take away those wins, you're treading water and actually

being successful, at least, you know, for a three game set of kind of while your offense

is going down, you're still finding ways to win because eventually that offense is going

to tick back up and you're going to ride the waves of the season.

So that's really encouraging is there are many ways for this group to win.

I think that remains true that there are, you know, they present a lot of avenues and,

you know, whether that's small ball type stuff, the really good starting pitching, so on

and so forth, I think that they, there are many avenues for success.

Now not to get too high or over the moon on this, but 18 and 12 on April 30th, they have

two consecutive or two six game winning streaks within the same month.

They are second in the AL East behind the Yankees who are 20 in 11 playoffs.

Because this team is currently constructed, is this a playoff team, yes or no?

Maybe, I mean, I said right, I think they're sealing even before the season was a wild card

squad.

Okay.

I think they could be a wild card team.

I don't think they're going to win it.

I don't think you're going to win the division.

Let me, let me rephrase Kevin's question.

What do you need to see to go from that maybe to a yes that they are a playoff team?

Coming from the Orioles, Blue Jays and Red Dog.

It's a good question.

That's a really good question.

I think I need to see better out of, like, is Cedric Mullins going to be the long-term

answer here?

We got Mullins topics prepared for you.

You know, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, that I'll save, I'll save Mullins stuff.

That's a clock on the clock.

Got it.

You know, so, so Mullins is a big question mark, right?

You know, also a short stop is Ben Williamson, maybe the permanent answer for 2026.

Gavin Lux is he a thing when, whenever he's brought to the team and, and maybe can provide

a little bit more, in this lineup, at second base, if you move Williamson over, I also need

to see more from the bullpen while right now in a very good stretch, the underlying

numbers don't look good.

So they're not striking out, like, last year was a lot of, like, really bad luck.

This was a bullpen that was, like, number one in strikeouts, number one in, in walks

allowed, or, you know, however you want to do it, they, they allowed the fewest amount

of walks, whatever it was.

I don't know if you say it's one or, or last, but, yeah, exactly.

But they're not, it just, it feels like they're bad, if I think it's top five in Major League

Baseball, yet, their other numbers are not pretty.

They're, I think what you're seeing is a regression from how bad week one was, right?

Week one could not have gone any worse for the raise with their bullpen.

And obviously, a unit is not that bad, but, I mean, you saw it in Cleveland, right?

Cole Solser was this close to allowing a game time homer, but, you know, maybe last

year that's out of the park this year, the baseball gods gave him a break and a no run

inning.

Baker got into significant trouble.

Wiggled out of it.

Ian Seymour got into significant trouble, him and Kevin Kelly get out of it.

So they've just recently had some kind of, like, some good fortune, but I don't know if

that necessarily means that they figured it out.

I think they need, you know, the clevergers of the world who said at the middle of the

year, hopefully, M. Rod can come back at some point on the, on the back end of things,

who knows with him, but, you know, they're going to need to spruce up that bullpen, especially

if right now they're cross-training Griffin Jacks into a potential opener, opener starter,

whatever they're doing right now, because they, they kind of had a necessity or a little

bit time.

Or pepio and no boil and then you're kind of like, there's tons of injuries.

Yeah.

For the record, the race have a negative one run differential compared to the Yankees

plus 47.

So the Yankees are legitimately good.

The race expected win loss based on the metrics would be 15 and 15 instead of 18 and 12.

What is helping them, I think going forward a little bit is that the Orioles Blue Jays and

Red Sox are underperforming and the Red Sox are completely dysfunctional right now.

But Evan, before we move on to clasking the clock, I want to pose this question.

I know it's looking too far in the future a couple of months from now.

But let's just assume for a moment that the race are six games above 500 right before

at near the trade deadline.

Would you foresee the race as buyers, sellers or holders if they are six games above 500?

Look, the only time the race are truly going to be buyers is if they have the ability to

compete for an ALE's championship.

That's the only time the Eric is going to push some chips in and really go for it.

Nelson Cruz.

We saw it with Nelson Cruz.

We saw it with the Aaron Savali trade also when they had that tremendous start for the

season.

Everyone started getting hurt and he went for the best starting picture available in

the market that had term didn't work out.

Not that men's article has been killing it for the guardians either.

But I don't see them being buyers.

I think what it would do is hold off on maybe kind of those, do we float Yondi out there?

Do we float this person out there?

That person out there, I think it removes any of that dangling from the equation.

Talk about a PR backlash.

Six games above 500 right before the trade deadline and you dish Yondi, holy cow.

I'm not suggesting they're going to dish Yondi, I'm telling you that if they were six

games under 500, that would probably be more of a discussion.

It's more of a discussion considering the state of the franchise, where you're going,

what your future projects to be, it would probably make sense to see what you can get

out of Yondi considering he is a DH and he's a tremendous hitter, don't get me wrong,

but how many more years as Yondi really have left of being one of the best hitters in

baseball, theoretically, he's on the back nine of his career.

We know that.

He's gone from an in-the-field player to a DH, so I mean playing DH is going to elongate

his career, but at some point, father time's going to win, so typically the raise like

to hit the ejection button a little bit earlier than most.

I still think you could hit 280 at 38 years old.

I can't completely agree with that, I don't know if he's stretching out from any doubles.

You know, as I said, we're not there yet with Yondi, no, no, we're not.

If you're listening to this, don't think that Yondi's getting traded right now, I'm just saying

in this example, the prompt that was given to me, if there were six games up at 500, the trade

deadline, I have a tough time believing they're going to make a move like that to essentially tank

their team.

That would tank him.

The raise wants to squeeze the best out of Yondi DS, and we are going to get to squeeze

the best out of M and Klosski when we play Klosski on the clock.

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How do you spell that Kevin?

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y and I won the spell in B.

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It's time for the best intro in all the sports podcasts.

It's time for Closky, Closky on the clock.

Jazz hands.

It is a movement.

Kevin's always the worst at this.

Jazz hands.

Look at that.

It would have been better that way than what you did.

Hey, I'm working on it.

I would like you to ask the first question in regards to one, Cedric Mullins.

And oh, what to do with Cedric Mullins, if you don't mind.

I'm going to give you a little preamble, though, because I think people don't understand

the numbers yet for their bad by the way.

Cedric Mullins.

He has the fifth most played appearances.

He is hitting currently 126, 184, 232.

A WRC plus of 12.

So not good.

And I will go even further.

He's not walking.

He is not barreling the ball.

He is not hitting the ball hard.

In fact, when you look at the launch angle, it's gone career high.

And in now, he's putting the ball fly balls, the fly ball rate has gone insane on Cedric Mullins.

It's like he's made a mechanical adjustment to alter his launch angle.

He's hitting more fly balls, but they're not being productive whatsoever.

In fact, a quarter of his fly balls are infield fly pup ups.

Evan, when is the leash too long for a veteran like Cedric Mullins?

I mean, he's going to need a little bit more time here, right?

So you're getting hung up on the launch angle.

That's not the worst case scenario, because you would assume that if he can just level off a little bit,

the swing path is going to lead to more home runs, right, which is the goal.

It's certainly been ugly.

And it feels like he's pressing at the plate, considering that his walk rate went from 10% last year to less than 5% this year.

His babbeth is a 139.

We're going to see growth there.

His average is a 126.

We're going to see growth there.

His WRC plus, as you mentioned to the 12,

fan graphs has him rest of season at 83.

The thing is, you've hung in here long enough with Cedric Mullins.

You've got to give him more time because there should be a regression to the mean in a positive way.

And I expect that you want to try to cash in on that, considering what you've had to deal with already.

He hasn't burned you, per se, and defensive runs saved.

He's a zero, which isn't worst case scenario.

I mean, he's better than what he was last year in center field.

He's not Kevin Kiermeier by any means, but he's playing a league average center field,

which is good enough right now.

So how long do you stick with him?

Yeah.

Let's give him another hundred of bats.

I think you got to give him another hundred that takes you into the beginning of June.

And then at that point, decisions are made.

The issue with Cedric is that I think Jacob Melton was always the natural successor mid season to take his job.

But Melton, of course, is nursing an ankle injury right now.

And I don't think he's going to be back in action until the beginning of June.

And then you've got to get him ready again.

And so, you know, I don't know how quickly that's going to get ramped up.

I said this the other day, Kevin, when I was solo, I said, give him two more weeks with the same amount of playing time.

And then after that, if everything still says same, then start to level off.

I hear Evan saying instead of two weeks, give him four weeks.

Where do you stand on this, Kevin?

Uh, for Cedric Mullins.

I guess give him more time because I don't have a lot of other options.

I mean, until Jacob Melton gets healthy, I guess.

I don't know.

Because I looked at Johnny DeLuca's splits against righties, which, hey, everybody wants to see more Johnny DeLuca.

Okay. He has a 60 something WRC plus against righties.

So it's not like Johnny DeLuca's the answer there.

And that's, I just want to say because that's the point that I try to explain to fans as well.

The razor putting DeLuca in successful positions, which leads to him, you know, the whole point of DeLuca is to play the strong side of his platoon.

That's why it's a platoon team, right?

Jake Frailey has got better in him against righties.

I truly believe that.

And, and we've seen a little bit of it.

I do think he's going to get better, but you don't want Jake Frailey playing against lefties.

You know what Johnny DeLuca playing against righties?

When you start playing them more, that nice taste you have in your mouth, it's going to go away.

That this is a platoon based team.

You got to play the platoons appropriately, and you got to just see it from time.

Now, if the team was on a six game losing streak, I think there'd be more sense of an urgency of like, okay, how long are we going to have this guy being buried on our team?

I would probably say he needs to be more of an eight hitter than a six hitter.

Like, you got to, I think, put him a little bit lower in the lineup.

Yes.

Otherwise, you know, maybe that's a tinker that you do in the short term while you try to figure him out.

But, you know, there's going to be a game here somewhere soon where he hits like two homers or something like that.

Like he goes to work two homers.

And then that kind of like gets the little bit of correction going.

But that, that's just my guess.

And I just had a little more time.

Maybe he's just a really slow starter. Who knows?

I mean, we'll, we'll just have to find out.

He can't really hit a fastball. That's a problem.

So he's not hitting anything.

Not everything is ridiculous.

He's in the land of in between, which is the worst place to be.

Well, regardless, he gets paid whether he plays or doesn't play or gets released.

Um, next question.

Class in the clock.

And we know that Cetric Mullins is not the answer to this question.

Team MVP for the month of April.

Evan, who would you give that to?

And why a pitcher, a player?

Heck, if you want to give it to a manager, I guess you could do that.

But who is your team MVP for the month of April?

Slash the final days of March up until now, 30 games in.

Who's your team?

MVP.

I'll go to, I'll go one on both sides.

Yandee Diaz offensively speaking.

The guy just hits.

It's crazy.

This man is a is one of the best hitters in baseball and just goes about his business.

And I think he's just such a strong solid force in the lineup and provide such a sense of stability for how everything functions with with those nine hitters.

That it's hard for me not to single out Yandee and say that he continues to just rake.

On the pitching side, Nick Martinez, just back to back howitzers of starts a reminder for everyone out there.

Don't judge people off a spring spring training statistics.

Everyone was telling me this was the worst signing in race history.

A waste of $13 million.

Yada, yada, yada.

And you know, the guy hasn't given up more than two earned runs in any start this season.

You know, outside of the one.

Max would have been in consideration outside of his one stinker against the reds, but.

Man, you have to be really thankful that that Neander got Martinez and Matt's considering the injury concerns this team has had to begin the season.

Solid of mail.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

You'll see what he got.

Well, make the case, Evan, for the race, needing to do X to sweep the Giants this weekend.

Pitch well, I think it's real simple.

The Giants lineup is nothing spectacular.

We all know that Willie Adamus can't see inside tropic and a field.

So you got that going for you.

I don't even think I need the full 60 seconds.

It's simply like this, this pitching staff has been on a heater.

Just keep doing what you're doing.

I think in the last seven games, they've given up eight on runs.

So if you pitch like that, if you're holding the Giants to one or two runs, like you theoretically should sweep them.

Despite whatever they throw out there.

But yeah, I expect the raise to hold the Giants to three runs or less in each of these games.

I love that.

All right.

Final question before we get to baseball trivia named that war.

Evan, the NFL draft is complete.

I do want to get your grade for the Buccaneers, but my question is still steered towards baseball.

We know that the NFL draft is at the pinnacle of popularity, the number of people that show up to the event,

the number of people that watch and engage the event and focus on the event pretty much year round with that.

What can be done if anything to improve the MLB draft in your opinion?

Well, first off, the Buccaneers A- I thought Jason might get a great job.

B, I don't know if there's really much that Major League Baseball can do.

They try to now put it into all-star weekend, which I think was a good change so that it's not just randomly stuck into the middle of the season.

This way, you're bringing some eyeballs to it.

There's no real games to be played.

But the fact is, the NFL draft is so exciting because you get to watch all these players on Saturday,

and the nation is captivated by college football.

The nation isn't captivated by college baseball, the way it is college football,

and certainly nobody outside of scouts and people who follow the sport know the high schoolers that are draft eligible

and could be great.

I don't know if there's a major change other than maybe during the regular season calendar,

you actually just, everybody is off one day and you do the chunk,

at least the first couple rounds of the draft so that you're forcing all baseball fans in the heart of the season

to really gravitate towards watching these picks.

I don't think it's going to be some sort of marquee event.

It's pretty tough with where it is in the calendar, with the college schedule,

and then also how organizations want to get these players into their systems so that they can maybe play a little bit in the season

and also get to learn about them before next season.

Yeah, and it does seem like some guys are being called up sooner rather than later with the contraction of the minor leagues.

But the NFL draft has the benefit of, you have the most popular sport in America, in NFL,

and the second most popular sport in college football,

and it's like a conglomeration of both of those together for one three day weekend party, if you will.

So there we go. All right, baseball trivia and name that war coming up next.

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All right, thank you for listening to the Lockdown Race Podcast and making us your first listen of the day we appreciate.

We are of course part of the locked on podcast network, the number one sports podcast network in the land.

And it's also helpful when Evan Klowski joins us because he is a very popular person in the team Bay Area, except for some real Twitter comment.

You know, I've heard he doesn't pay for drinks in Tampa anymore.

That's really my wallet says otherwise.

You're basically like Kurt Signetti in Bloomington.

I wish I could get that reference. I bet it's a good one.

That is a darn change.

All right, my baseball trivia question for you all is in regards to the upcoming series this weekend against the San Francisco Giants.

The Giants have a noted history, of course, and there's quite a few players in the organization who hit quite a few home runs during the franchise's history.

So in front of me, I have a list of the top 10 career home run leaders in a Giants uniform.

I want you to give me five of these top 10 names.

One is numero two.

Number two, numero two.

Willie Mace.

Hang on.

Very bonds.

586 homeers continue.

Willie Mace.

Willie Mace, numero.

No.

With 646.

Very good.

So you have the one and two.

McCavvy.

Where it gets drink.

Who?

McCavvy.

Willie McCavvy is number four on this list with 469.

I'm going to go Jeff Kent.

Okay.

Jeff Kent.

He is tied for 10th.

So I won't give that to you.

Ty goes to the runner here.

175 dingers.

So a big drop off from maze and bonds to number 10 on this.

We're quite pretend.

Evan.

We're not going to say rich or really, even though we really want to.

My head was rich or really.

It's crazy.

I was thinking.

We're even.

We have time.

What's going on?

Snow or something?

JT snow?

JT snow.

I'm.

I mean, is Buster Posey on this?

I would guess.

Posey has more than 200.

You want to go Posey?

Buster Posey.

He.

He will be with.

I don't know what he would think like 10 years.

Right.

2010 to 2020.

Maybe a couple of years in that.

12.

Maybe.

So 12 he would have to average what we're talking like 20

That's like 240

Because he said Jeff kind of had 175 so does he

In a giant uniform. I think he clears 175. I would be surprised if Buster Posey did not clear 175 right Evan. Buster Buster Posey

Buster Posey is not on this list strike one and just for posterity sake. He had

158 career homers in a giant's uniform. Oh, we were so close

All right, so we got one strike

One strike and just to note that does not

Detract from Buster Posey overall as a player was a terrific player. It was a terrific player

Okay, okay, so

Let's

People that were there for a long time Brendan Belts. What do you like about that? Oh

I don't think I don't think it's not enough. I don't think no

This is the puffy and Kent panda Sandoah

I don't know if he was no not that none many years, right?

I feel I feel like we're forgetting a really good old school guy. I'm sure we are yeah, and we're not guessing wait

We're guessing home run so

Okay, okay, okay 80s giants people 70s giants

I need a guess stalling stalling

Give me a guess please

Who

was

Behind Posey all those years

No, that's that's bonds era. I really thought you guys were gonna nail this out of the park because it was like being being boom

Radotat

Four so we got four and in and then one strike you have four and one strike and I need one more name

All right, let's give you want to do you want to do or really just for fun. You would have a rich a real yeah, right? Yeah, okay

You're gonna give you a hint. Yeah, first instinct

You may or may not have named them already

You say Brandon, but you want to go with Brandon belt? Yeah, I go with Brandon. Okay

Brandon Bell

He is tied for 10th with Jeff Kent with 175 homers

Let me go ahead and give you the

Anything that should be cheers for me

You know he said it accounts that

Willie Mays Barry bonds Mel ought number three with five eleven Willie McCubby

Number four Matt williams. I know we think about him in a diamond backs uniform

But Matt williams hit some dingers 247 of them to be exact in a giant uniform or a land of sapata number six with two

26 Bobby Thompson number seven with one eighty nine

Not Barry bonds, but Bobby bonds number eight with one eighty six will Clark nine and then of course tied for 10th

Brandon Bell and Jeff Kent easy how they all come so easy ones, you know

No, I knew no, I was a bad miss

You know Bobby bonds was a bad miss too, but you know what is never a bad miss?

Actually, there's plenty of bad misses when you play name that war which is when we take a player from the past and we try to guess their career war

According to baseball reference only using our baseball archive mind and today's player from the past not only did he play with the San Francisco

Giants

But he was also a race legend. What is Sergio Ramos

Career war according to baseball

The opener that's right. So what do you play like?

We're talking like 10 12 mid-twelfth season

You know, I'm not even gonna try to overthink this. I'm gonna go with

I'm gonna go with

I'm just gonna say 12

This is I'm not trying to undercut you or prices right you, but this is the number I had in my head since

Ulysses uttered the word surgery of Romo

11.8

A 15-year veteran a 123 ERA plus he pitched 722

Innings and two thirds he had

37 saves he had three bleeping rings people one time all star you put all of that together

789 K's and 722 innings pitch dude could K

His career war is not 12 is not 11.8

It is 2010 on the dot

Ah

Relievers don't get help in be wrath war. I got I got pray I got prices right it

You did yeah, you got prices right, but you know what everybody's a winner in name that war including you guys who are wherever you guys are listening to and

All of you that are listening to this episode you know you want more Evan Klosski in your life

We know we do so where can people get more Evan Klosski in their lives?

You can check out the 10-tip main news app. We're doing a lot of stuff on the lightning obviously right now certainly the razor

Part of our focus as well and and certainly hit me up at E Klosski WTSP on X

I have a lot of raised musings on there and and certainly love to to go back and forth

I respond to 99% of the comments

Just don't be a jerk. You're the model

And that's tough to do on Twitter slash X now

On that note, we hope you all have a wonderful day stay safe and we will talk to you next week