Dan Schulman

Coming into this season, people didn't have big expectations for this Rays team.

You know, you look at the playoff projections and they weren't quite as high as the other teams in the American League East.

And here they are in first place and they're nine and a half games up on the Blue Jays.

I know that for the last...

decade or so, the Rays have always found a way.

What have you made of the start this year?

And how are the Rays finding a way this year, despite expectations?

Well, cliches are cliches for a reason, right, Dwayne?

It was everyone effort yesterday.

With respect to that pitching, we saw Drew Rasmussen yesterday.

You know, this is year six of him kind of whenever he's available, he's a very, very good front-line starter.

Tonight, we're going to see Shane McClanahan.

And look, as someone talking about the Blue Jays, I don't really want to see Shane McClanahan right now.

But as a baseball fan, it's awesome to see Shane McClanahan back and pitching as well as he is.

He comes in with a 260 ERA, missed all of the last two seasons with injuries.

How big a boost has that been?

And where is McClanahan in kind of, you know, getting back to feeling 100% like those injuries are behind him?

They have, and they've done that despite some injury.

Ryan Peppio undergoing hip surgery.

You mentioned Matz on the IL.