Tampa Bay Rays become the 2019 MLB playoff Cinderella

With a fairly surprising win when they needed it, the Tampa Bay Rays are now definitely the 2019 MLB post-season Cinderella team. Will it last?

A baseball fan whose team is eliminated from the playoffs before October needs a Cinderella team to cheer on, but in an era of increasing disparity between MLB’s haves and have nots, it seems a Cinderella club is harder and harder to come by. The Tampa Bay Rays may have something to say about that and made that clear with their backs against the playoff wall Oct. 8.

In the Grimm Brothers’ tale of Cinderella, the later Disney Princess is transformed into a girl suitable for a royal ball almost instantly, magically arranging for the birds of the air to provide her an evening gown: “Then the bird threw a gold and silver dress down to her, and slippers embroidered with silk and silver. She quickly put on the dress and went to the festival.”

Interestingly, however, the original of this famous tale is considerably bloodier than the story we’re all used to, and if the Rays are now MLB’s Cinderella, Justin Verlander can relate. Tuesday things in Tampa did not go well for the Houston Astros ace, previously almost a lock in post-season baseball.

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When Verlander took the mound in the bottom of the first, though, two possibilities appeared pretty quickly: The Tampa Bay Rays might well be an instant Cinderella,  and Houston’s right-hander could be bloodied, indeed bloodied earlier than the Grimm boys started bleeding their characters.

The second Rays batter, Tommy Pham, slammed a poorly placed change-up into the left-center seats for a 1-0 lead, and before the inning was over Travis d’Arnaud and Joey Wendle had added an RBI single and a run-scoring double. Until this inning, Verlander had allowed only three earned runs in three of his past 14 postseason games, dating back to 2013.

Meanwhile, the far lower profile Rays pitchers were very much like Cinderella picking those lentils out of the hearth ashes in the Grimm tale. Surely they would fail – some observers had to be thinking that. Look at their names – outside of Tampa, how many fans until this evening could accurately identify Diego Castillo, Ryan Yarbrough, Nick Anderson, Colin Poche, or Emilio Pagan? Only Blake Snell, the starter-turned-closer for the moment, was likely familiar.

In the end, only Poche surrendered a run, and the Rays walked away in a gold and silver dress. A 4-1 win made them 2019’s MLB Cinderella. Will their run extend past Thursday evening in Houston? The Astros will send out another big name starter. The Tampa Bay Rays won’t.