Are the Rays Cheating? It's Not Necessary vs. the Yankees

Yesterday, on radio station WFAN, Evan Roberts made the claim that the Tampa Bay Rays' amazing start -- 13-0, now 30-9 -- is due to cheating:

"There's something suspicious about that, by the way," Roberts said of the Rays' start. "All I know is, I'm a baseball fan. I know baseball. I like baseball. I was very skeptical with what I saw this weekend."

Roberts is a Met fan. He admitted, "I have no evidence" of the Rays cheating, but pointed to the number of players on their roster who are outperforming their baseball card: "Christian Bethancourt: Hello? Taylor Walls, what?"

Bethancourt is a 31-year-old catcher, who has already hit 6 home runs, when he hit 11 last season, topping a previous season-high of 6. Walls is a former top prospect who has improved which is understandable, since he batted just .172, with 8 home runs and 33 RBIs in 142 games. But he was already 25 years old. Most guys who are that undeveloped at 25 aren't going to pan out. Walls is now batting .261 with 6 homers and 13 RBIs.

Roberts continued, comparing the situation to The Athletic, in 2019, breaking the story of the Houston Astros' cheating:

You know what most of us do? We don't know who they are, so we just say, "The Rays are brilliant." Here's the problem: I know who they are. They're not good. The Rays are 19-3 at home? Hello? Are you gonna wake up when the article’s written in The Athletic, or are you gonna wake up now? Sometimes, you don't need evidence. Sometimes, you gotta say, "What I'm watching doesn't make sense." So I'll do it. I'm not a Yankee fan. I'm gonna raise my hand. Hey, ladies and gentlemen: What I'm seeing in Tampa makes no sense.

Look, we know that baseball teams cheat. The Astros have gotten caught. The Red Sox have gotten caught. Major League Baseball officials didn't care when the team getting hurt by the cheating was the Yankees. The only reason the Astros got punished as little as they were is that, in the 2017 World Series, the cheating hurt a team that MLB does like, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In 2018, the Red Sox, having already been caught using Apple Watches to cheat, beat the Astros in the Playoffs. In 2021, the Astros beat the Red Sox in the Playoffs. No evidence of the Astros cheating in 2021 has yet surfaced, but, like the Red Sox, they have forfeited the presumption of innocence. If the proof is ever found, what then? Probably the same thing that happened to them after the 2017 proof was found: As the old saying goes, "Thirty lashes with a wet noodle."

Yes, the Rays are 19-3 at home. They are also 11-6 on the road. That's pretty strong. A reasonable person would conclude that, if they are cheating, it is not with a method that is tied in to their home stadium.

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Anyway, coming off a sweep of the Oakland Disarr-A's, the Yankees had some momentum going into their home series with the high-flying Rays.

But Maurice "Mo" Mentum is a free agent, and he switched teams again.

Domingo Germán started for the Yankees last night, and he was fine for the 1st 4 innings, allowing 3 hits and 2 walks, but no runs. But the Yankees didn't score, either, as Drew Rasmussen allowed just 1 baserunner, a single by Jake Bauers in the 2nd inning.

And error by Anthony Rizzo at 1st base led to a Rays run in the 5th. They loaded the bases in the 6th, and Ron Marinaccio couldn't stop them from clearing the bases with a double. At 1-0, it was still game winnable; at 4-0, it was game over.

The Rays got another run in the 7th, and 3 more in the 8th. The Yankees still got nothing. Bauers hit another single in the 5th, and Harrison Bader was hit by a pitch in the 8th. (Don't worry, he wasn't injured again.) That HBP and the 2 Bauers singles were the Yankees' only baserunners over the 1st 8 innings.

Willie Calhoun led off the bottom of the 9th with a double. Anthony Volpe and Aaron Judge grounded out. But Rizzo and DJ LeMahieu drew walks to load the bases, so there was the slimmest of hope. Gleyber Torres singled Calhoun and Rizzo home. But it was somehow fitting that Bauers, the only offense the Yankees had previously had, ended it with a strikeout.

Rays 8, Yankees 2. WP: Rasmussen (4-2). No save. LP: Germán (2-3). The Yankees are 9 games behind the Rays, and we're not even halfway through May. I don't know if the Rays are cheating. I know that, whatever the Yankees are doing, legal and otherwise, isn't working. So the Rays don't need to cheat against them.

The series continues tonight. Gerrit Cole starts against Trevor Kelley.

And, last night, the New Jersey Devils' season came to an end, with a 3-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes in the NHL Eastern Conference Semifinals. It was their best season in 11 years. They made the Playoffs. They won a Playoff Round. They beat the arch-rival New York Rangers in so doing. The future looks bright.

For them. For the Yankees, to borrow a phrase that Muhammad Ali once used, the future is a mist.