Devil Rays revitalized

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Lou Piniella concedes he sounded pretty foolish.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays manager kicked off a winter luncheon tour by guaranteeing his young team won’t end up in last place again and made an even bolder prediction of a .500 finish a few days later.

“A manager should be enthusiastic about the prospects for his team,” Piniella said, chuckling at the recollection.

“The safest approach you can take is: ‘Well, we made changes. But we’re in a tough division, we have a small payroll and we’re young, and I’m hoping we do well.’ What does that accomplish? Let your players know that you feel good about them and that you have confidence in them.”

By the third stop on his goodwill junket Piniella joked that if there were many more, he probably would wind up declaring the Devil Rays were going to win the rugged A.L. East and a World Series championship.

Well, no one’s laughing now.

The Yankees and Red Sox are still the best teams in the division. But after losing 28 of their first 38 games, the Devil Rays turned their season around with a historic surge that carried them above .500 this late in the year for the first time.

They were a major league-best 20-6 in June, including a franchise-record 12-game winning streak, and became the first team in major league history to get above the break-even point after being 18 games below.

On their way to 99 losses last season — their first under Piniella — the Rays won five games in June.

“I told them a month ago, the only way you’re going to be able to turn your fortunes around is by playing hard every day, having fun doing it and coming to the ballpark and repeating it every day. That’s exactly what they’ve done,” Piniella said.

“But what’s really going to define our season is what happens over the next three months. … What we’ve done is not a fluke. It’s not an accident. You’ve got to play good baseball. We’ve played good baseball at home, we’ve played good baseball on the road. So we’re certainly capable.”

The manager is hesitant, though, to go out on a limb and say the team is good enough to keep its current hold on third place in the division behind the big-spending, star-laden Yankees and Red Sox.

At about $23 million, Tampa Bay has the lowest payroll in baseball. The team’s biggest weakness is starting pitching, and the schedule figures to be an obstacle, too, with 24 games remaining against the Yankees and Red Sox.

“As Lou has said many times, were we as bad as we played early? Absolutely not. Are we as good as what we played lately? Probably not,” general manager Chuck LaMar said. “This is a marathon, not a sprint. Over 162 games, the best teams win in the major leagues.”

Since May 20, the Devil Rays have gone 8-2 against division leaders and — at least momentarily — knocked three teams out of first place. In addition, they took two of three games from San Francisco for the Giants’ only series loss during a three-week stretch.

The Devil Rays finished June on a 28-9 streak — best in baseball since May 20 — and one game over .500 at 38-37.

Emerging young star Carl Crawford, Julio Lugo, Jose Cruz Jr., Aubrey Huff and Rocco Baldelli all hit over .300 during the 32-game stretch that righted the season after the Devil Rays went 3-19 from April 25 to May 19.

The bullpen made up for a lack of solid starting pitching, going 11-1 with 13 saves and a 2.88 ERA, prompting Piniella to say: “I can’t envision any other bullpen in baseball doing a better job than ours.”

Offseason acquisitions Cruz, Tino Martinez, Rey Sanchez, Geoff Blum and closer Danys Baez are playing key roles. And Piniella, lured from Seattle in October 2002 after a successful 10-year stint there, has made a big difference, too.

While many felt the fiery 60-year-old manager might lack the patience it would take to turn the Devil Rays around, LaMar believes Piniella probably has done the best managing job of his career.

Still, Piniella cautions that one good six-week stretch doesn’t have the Devil Rays “out of the woods.”

“We’re not going to sneak up on anybody,” the manager said. “The opposition is going to get tougher. You’ve got two teams ahead of us who want to keep us there and the two teams behind us who want to re-pass us. But put it this way, it’s going to be fun.”