With a few days to think about it, the Rays series in Boston was just not a good time.
The team was seemingly out of every game and were even shutout on Saturday with Garrett Crochet tossing his first ever complete game (Shane Baz was pretty good, but it doesn’t matter when your offense is kaput). The teams position players as a whole put up -0.6 fWAR which was the worst in baseball over those four days as was their 44 wRC+; only one player had positive fWAR and that was Jake Mangum (0.2 fWAR). The pitching wasn’t much better with the bullpen once again allowing games to be lost late, including a walk-off loss on Friday.
With that being said, someone has to be the Player of the Series and Taj Bradley seems to be as good a choice as any.
During the series opener on Thursday, Bradley delivered one of the better starts of his career (13th best according to Baseball Reference’s GameScore). Bradley hurled six innings and allowed a lone run on two hits while he walked three and struck out five. Unfortunately, Bryan Baker made his Rays debut and allowed three runs. Boston eventually won the game, 4-3.
Bradley is now in the thick of his 3rd season in the big leagues and the 24-year old currently has a 4.60 ERA | 4.14 FIP with a 20.4 K% & 9.2 BB% over 103 2⁄3 IP across 19 starts.
DRAYSBAY PLAYER OF THE SERIES
1st: Kameron Misner
2nd: Jake Mangum
3rd: Brandon Lowe
4th: Jose Caballero
5th: Joe Boyle
6th: Shane Baz
7th: Chandler Simpson
8th: Christopher Morel
9th: Chandler Simpson
10th: Mason Englert
11th: Taylor Walls
12th: Yandy Diaz
13th: Travis Jankowski
14th: Brandon Lowe
15th: Drew Rasmussen
16th: Curtis Mead
17th: Junior Caminero
18th: Zack Littell
19th: Zack Littell
20th: Junor Caminero
21st: Christopher Morel
22nd: Yandy Diaz
23rd: Junior Caminero
24th: Brandon Lowe
25th: Yandy Diaz
26th: Shane Baz
27th: Brandon Lowe
28th: Yandy Diaz
29th: Joe Boyle
30th: Jonathan Aranda
31st: Taj Bradley