Team Heat Check: Tampa Bay Rays Run Hot, Oakland Athletics Run Cold (MLB)

Ten games is not a season, but it is a mood, and moods decide a lot of games. The current mood around MLB: Tampa Bay Rays keep winning, Oakland Athletics keep losing, and everybody else lives somewhere in the weather between.

Burning up

Tampa Bay Rays own the league's best recent ledger at 9-1, and the +23 runs margin underneath it says the record is earned. Per game the numbers read 6.6 for and 4.3 against, a gap that does not happen by accident across 10 games.

Chicago Cubs are the closest thing to company at 8-2, with a +25 runs margin that says the record is no fluke.

And do not sleep on Detroit Tigers, quietly 7-3 across their last 10.

Some context helps: across every club in the sample, scoring sits at 4.4 runs per game right now. Tampa Bay Rays are beating the league's own pace by 2.2 a game.

The cold end

At the bottom of the temperature map sit Oakland Athletics: 1-9 in their last 10, -42 on runs margin. That is about 4.2 a game in the wrong direction, and no lineup shuffle fixes it overnight.

Pittsburgh Pirates are not far behind on the misery index at 2-8.

Do not ignore the middle class, either: Philadelphia Phillies (5-5) and Milwaukee Brewers (5-5) sit close enough that a single hot or cold series flips their order.

At a glance

The top of the ledger, at a glance:

Worth remembering

As always, watch where record and runs margin tell different stories about the same club. The margin tends to know first.

The schedule cooperates, too, Tampa Bay Rays face Baltimore Orioles next, so this story gets its next chapter almost immediately.