Tampa Bay acting like they belong in first place

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Check out the American League East standings. The Tampa Bay Rays are in first place. And they are acting like they belong.Shocked?Don't be. Even though the Rays haven't lost fewer than 92 games in any of their 11 seasons, have finished out of last place once (fourth in 2004) and, until they chalked up win No. 50 on Sunday this season, hadn't won their 50th game in a season until the calendar had turned to August.So what are they doing atop the division?It is, in the word of Peter Ciccarelli, a former baseball guy turned marketer, a "Rayvolution."The Rays are taking advantage of a scouting and player-development system that hasn't had worse than the eighth pick in the 13 drafts in which the team has participated. The Rays are in line to become the latest testimony to the parity commissioner that Bud Selig likes to brag about.Since the advent of the three-division format in 1995 and the addition of a wild card to send four teams in each league to the postseason, it has become common for a team to rebound from a losing record one season to the postseason the next.In the past 13 postseasons, 25 teams have participated only a year after losing more games than they won, including at least one every year except 2005 and as many as four in 1998. In the past 11 years, six of the teams coming off losing seasons actually made it to the World Series, including eventual world champions Florida in 2003, Anaheim in 2002 and Florida in 1997.The Rockies, a year ago, and Detroit, in 2006, both lost in the World Series after producing a losing record the previous season.Now the Rays are testing the odds after having lost 96 games last season. In the past 13 years, only one of the 25 losers turned postseason participants lost more games than these Rays, and of those, the 1999 Diamondbacks, a second-year expansion team, spent a lot of money to quickly unload the expansion image that left them with 97 losses in their inaugural season.Between their first two years of play, the Diamondbacks acquired closer-in-the-making Matt Mantei from Florida and signed free-agent left fielder Luis Gonzalez, center fielder Steve Finley, infielder Tony Womack, left-handed reliever Greg Swindell and starting pitchers Randy Johnson and Todd Stottlemyre.Infield chatter:-Arizona outfielder Eric Byrnes, on the disabled list for the second time this season with hamstring problems, is considering undergoing surgery on his left hamstring, which would knock him out for the remainder of the season. A decision is expected next week.- Nomar Garciaparra has been getting action at shortstop during his rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A Las Vegas. Dodgers manager Joe Torre said he wouldn't ask Garciaparra to play the position full time, considering he hasn't played it since 2005. But Garciaparra could be in the shortstop mix because of back surgery that will sideline Rafael Furcal until the final week of August, at the earliest.- Toronto is looking to move right-handed pitcher A.J. Burnett, who is in the third year of a three-year, $55 million deal. But there is a catch. Burnett has the right to opt out of the contract at season's end, which limits what a team would want to give up.The rotation: Some All-Star selection tidbits:- The Rockies' Clint Hurdle, who will manage the National League team, will add seven players, four of them pitchers, to his team's roster. AL manager Terry Francona gets to add only five players because the AL team includes two designated hitters - one voted by fans and the other voted by players.- The players were empowered in 2003 to vote for the backup player at each position and seven pitchers.- Francona and Hurdle each will select five players for fans to vote on as the 32nd and final player on each team.- Only two players have ever been write-in winners in fan voting - Rico Carty of Atlanta in 1970, the year the vote was returned to the fans after a 14-year absence, and Steve Garvey of the Dodgers in 1974, when he was the MVP.Out in left field:Managers beware, if Atlanta advance scout Bobby Wine shows up.Three managers have been fired this season, and Wine was in town at the time of each dismissal.He was in Seattle when Mariners manager John McLaren was fired; in Milwaukee, where Toronto was playing when Blue Jays manager John Gibbons was let go; and in New York scouting the Mets the day before they replaced manager Willie Randolph.Closing statement:Tampa Bay management needs to get serious about filling the Rays' voids and making a serious run in the AL East, or at least the wild card. Given the neighborhood the Rays play in, the opportunities to make a splash are hard to come by.In the past 10 years, the AL East has had 16 postseason participants, including the wild card six times. All those appearances were made by the Yankees (10 times) and Red Sox (six).As a scout recently put it: "If the Rays are serious about winning, they need to do two things - pick up C.C. Sabathia from Cleveland to fill out the rotation and Brian Fuentes from Colorado to stabilize the bullpen."Both pitchers are potential free agents, but the Rays have spent the first 11 years of their existence planning for the future. It's time they stepped back for a year and enjoyed the moment.(Tracy Ringolsby writes for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colo. E-mail ringolsbyt(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)