Tampa, Fla.-It’s that time of the year, when we are told to prepare for hurricanes, that summer is ending (even though it seems to get hotter), freshmen are running around campus with backpacks two times too large, and the Tampa Bay Rays are looking to make a run in the American League pennant chase. The 2013 baseball season has been filled with all the same excitement that any Rays fan has come to expect over the past few years, and it all started in the preseason.

The Tampa Bay Rays started the 2013 preseason off just like every year. The pitchers and catchers reported to camp a week before the rest of the team in Port Charlotte.

The difference this year was their inning eating, work horse had been sold to another stable. James Shields was the veteran presence in the rotation and in the clubhouse and had brought a certain hard working mentality to the clubhouse. He is gone, but work ethic has stuck with the rest of the rotation. Shields was traded to Kansas City (along with reliever/starter Wade Davis) for young talent, but the obvious catch was the current minor league Player of the Year award winner, Wil Myers. Myers held a .314 batting average in the minors during the 2012 season, and hit 37 home runs, while batting in 109 runners. These numbers pointed out that Myers was not being challenged at the lower level. The Rays decided to take their time, however and let Myers mature into a complete player. He now leads most (if not all) contenders for the AL Rookie of the Year award.

Wil Myers wasn’t the only new face that brought excitement and buzz to the spring training complex. The additions of shortstop Yunel Escobar and first baseman James Loney, have shored up any defensive deficiencies that the team had experienced during the 2012 season. Both players have put up gold glove award numbers and Loney has not had a batting average below .300 since the first month of the season.

These two additions have brought the Rays defense back to a level of precision that has been a staple of the team since the miracle World Series run in 2008. With Loney and Longria on the corners, and Escobar and Zobrist making up the middle infield tandem, the Rays have the second best defense in the majors right now with a .990 fielding percentage. The Rays are second only to the Baltimore Orioles and are followed by the New York Yankees.

Evan Longoria has successfully taken over the mantle as not only a team captain, but as the team leader. He continues to be the Rays most effective offensive weapon, hitting around .270, with 29 homeruns, and 73 RBIs. Unfortunately, it is not all good news at the Trop.

The Rays pitching staff has been in disarray since day one of the season. With David Price (2012 Cy Young award winner) having pitched with a shoulder injury for the first month of the season, and then subsequently being placed on the disabled list for a month, both Matt Moore and Alex Cobb took surprising steps forward in their maturation process, with Matt Moore tied for the most wins in baseball for the first two months. However, both pitchers had their own issues.

Matt Moore lost some of his velocity and control, and the Rays announced that he had suffered an elbow injury. Alex Cobb took a line drive to the side of his head and somehow managed to escape the injury without a concussion, but still had to be monitored and on the DL for at least six weeks. Jeremy Hellickson has attempted to take on the extra workload of innings pitched with Shields absence, but has not been able to live up to those expectations.

The Rays are currently in the second wild-card spot with only a two-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles.

The Rays have only a few games left in the season to get their offense and pitching back to the standards that they have held themselves to for the past five years. If they cannot manage to take control of games in big, clutch moments, than they just might be spending October at the golf course. As we all know, October is full of big clutch moments.

Let’s go Rays!