Jim Souhan: Bartlett plays big role in Rays' success

The Tampa Bay Rays are no longer just the best story in baseball. They're the best team in baseball.

The Red Sox are playing in the Bronx on this holiday weekend, dominating the airwaves as usual, but this is the first time the Red Sox and Yankees have played after Memorial Day with neither of them leading the AL East since 1997.

Instead it's the Rays, nee Devil Rays, who have changed much more than their name. They have changed the way they play, with former Twins shortstop Jason Bartlett becoming one of their most subtly important players.

This spring, Rays manager Joe Maddon told me Bartlett is the best baserunner he's seen since Paul Molitor, and called him the guy who could teach his young, talented team how to make winning plays. "Around here, it's always been that you get to the end of the game and guys come in talking about how many hits they got," Maddon said.

"Jason isn't like that. He takes the extra base. He makes the difficult fielding plays that change games. He advances runners. He plays hard."

Bartlett isn't a dynamic statistical player, yet when the Twins made him their starting shortstop in 2006, they went on the best four-month stretch of baseball in franchise history.

Now Bartlett is contributing to another of the most surprising success stories of the decade.

Which did he find more rewarding -- the 2006 season, or helping the Rays to their best first half ever? "Definitely this, right now," Bartlett said. "Because we've gone from worst to first so far. And we're still hungry."

I spoke with Bartlett on Saturday night on the phone from the Rays clubhouse. After getting two hits in a six-run seventh inning as Tampa Bay rallied to sweep the Red Sox on Thursday, Bartlett injured his knee sliding into third. He's on the disabled list but said he would be back after the All-Star break.

Asked whether he was seeing any signs of the baseball culture changing in the Tampa area, Bartlett said: "The signs are the W's. And people are actually coming to the games. I think fans are starting to believe. They're 'feeling the heat,' as we say around here."

The Rays, who began play in 1998, have never had a .500 season. "I'm not surprised by this, though," Bartlett said. "I've always thought they had great talent down here. I never knew why they didn't win."

When Bartlett arrived, pitching coach Jim Hickey began quizzing him on how the Twins get pitchers to throw strikes, and Maddon told Bartlett he wanted him to set an example running the bases, particularly going from first to third.

"We won a game in Pittsburgh doing that, forcing an outfielder to throw it away," Bartlett said. "We're winning games like that right now, with little things."

When the Rays traded Delmon Young and Brendan Harris for Matt Garza and Bartlett this winter, they got themselves an potential ace and a shortstop who would transform their infield defense and mentality.

Garza is contributing to a dynamic young rotation, and former Twins enigma Grant Balfour is helping a surprisingly effective Tampa Bay bullpen.

The Garza-Young trade might pain Twins fans, but they should find the rise of the Rays, along with the Twins' brilliant play of late, encouraging. In the post-steroids era, teams relying on youth, speed, pitching depth and fielding are outperforming dinosaurs like the Yankees, Mets and Tigers.

Bartlett said he was disappointed by the trade, but he owns a home in Fort Myers and loves Florida, especially now that playing for the Rays means playing for a winning team.

"No joke, two or three years ago I told my girlfriend, now my wife, that I'd love to play in Tampa," Bartlett said. "I love the weather, and now that we're winning, I can't imagine being anyplace else."

Jim Souhan can be heard Sundays from 10 a.m.-noon on AM-1500 KSTP. • jsouhan@startribune.com