Yankees Lead AL East Narrowly; Rays Hanging Close Behind

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Transcript

00:00Let's flip it over to the American League, and we'll take a look at the east there.

00:02The New York Yankees in first place by only by a half game.

00:06Yanks are 46-34, not playing their best baseball as of late,

00:09which has allowed the Tampa Bay Rays here just to climb back up in the standings

00:13and a half game back.

00:15We need multiple 30-for-30s on how the Rays can operate in this fashion

00:21with players on a year-to-year basis that you really don't know about

00:24that turn into good ball players, pitchers that they lose year in, year out,

00:28bullpen guys year in, year out, and yet here they are again vying for the east

00:33with guys like the Orioles will pay money for the payroll.

00:36The Sox, even though they did trade in one of the players' way,

00:38they have a nice payroll.

00:40The Blue Jays play their guys.

00:41The Yankees with a massive payroll.

00:43And then here are the Rays.

00:44And we were thought to believe also, Joe, well, the Rays can't compete

00:47if they don't have that ridiculous ballpark where nobody can hit the baseball in.

00:50They're outdoors in the heat and humidity and still winning baseball games.

00:54Are they worth a plus-320 price to maybe take down the Yanks in the AL East?

00:58Well, I mean, great job, Rays, but let's pump the brakes here.

01:05Because of the fact that they play at the Yankees minor league stadium,

01:09Major League Baseball has put an extremely favorable schedule together for the Rays here.

01:17Let's see what they do in the second half when all of a sudden

01:20they're going to have to play 50 of their 80, 51 of their remaining 82 games on the road.

01:28I mean, right now they've played 50 of their first 80 games here at home.

01:33That's going to change in the second half.

01:35Let's see how good they are when the schedule doesn't exactly favor them like it has thus far.

01:41Let's see how good they are when the schedule doesn't change in the world.

01:49Let's see how good they're going to be in the next half.