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The Tampa Bay Rays are all but eliminated from playoff contention in 2017.
They needed to have a pretty good September in order to at least make the chase interesting...they have not.
Instead, the Rays have so far gone 6-10 during the final month of the season, losing eight of their last 11 contest. Yet, somehow they actually haven’t lost too much ground in the Wild Card race, which is incredibly frustrating.
The Rays have been awful this month, if they had been decent, at least .500, they would still be in the thick of the chase.
As of now, the Rays remain five games back of the second Wild Card spot as the rest of their competition have fallen into ruts as well. In fact, over the last 10 days, the seven teams that made up the Wild Card race, are all below .500.
Records of Wild Card 2 contenders over last 10 games:
— Craig Brown (@CraigBrown_BP) September 20, 2017
MIN 4-6
LAA 4-6
TEX 3-7
KC 4-6
SEA 4-6
TB 3-7
BAL 2-8
Ugly.
If the Rays had played at .500 so far for the month of September, their record would have been 75-75 and just 2.5 games back in the Wild Card chase with one team ahead of them.
Every game matters this time of year, and the Rays performance this month is just so disheartening.
There’s always next year.