Rays report card: Grading out the Division Series

The Rays celebrate in Chicago - AP 

The Rays eliminated the White Sox tonight to add to the seemingly infinite list of "firsts" that they have accomplished this season. But before we move on to the first American League Championship Series in team history, let’s break down the Rays’ performance in their Division Series victory over the Chicago White Sox.

Top of the Lineup: Akinori Iwamura and B.J. Upton batted one and two in the lineup for all four games of this series. Iwamura went 7 for 18 with a homer, three runs scored, and four RBI in the series. Upton was 5 for 18 with three homers – two in Game Four – five runs scored and four RBI. These guys were in the thick of a lot of big rallies. Though they didn’t perform as prototypical "table setters" at the top of the lineup, they were plenty productive. Grade: A.

Heart of the Order: Evan Longoria hit a pair of homers and drove in three in Game One. Those were the only two homers provided by the 3-4-5-6 spots in the order all series. Longoria, Carlos Pena, Carl Crawford, Cliff Floyd, Rocco Baldelli, and Willy Aybar all saw playing time in the heart of the order and though they didn’t hit a lot of homers, they were productive enough. After overcoming the eye injury that pretty much kept him out of the first two games, Carlos Pena had five hits in the last two games of the series. Grade: B+.

Bottom of the Lineup: Dioner Navarro, Gabe Gross, Fernando Perez, and Jason Bartlett manned the 7-8-9 slots in the lineup for this series. Navarro came through with a big series, batting .400 with three RBI and the other guys did their job, not necessarily with a ton of production, but getting enough hits to turn the lineup over and make the Chicago pitching staff work hard. Grade: B+.

Defense: The Rays did not make a single error in the entire series. That’s about all you need to say for the Rays’ defense in this series. Grade A+.

Starting Pitchers: James Shields, Scott Kazmir, and Andy Sonnanstine all earned wins in this series. Matt Garza came up with a sub-par effort in Game Three and took the loss. Shields went seven solid innings in Game One and you can’t ask for more than that. Although Kazmir and Sonnanstine both won their starts, neither one of them got out of the sixth inning. Overall, this group performed well enough to get the job done, but that may not have been the case had the bullpen not been lights out. Grade: B.

Bullpen: The only run allowed by the bullpen was Paul Konerko’s solo homer off Dan Wheeler in the ninth inning of Game One. Aside from that the bullpen allowed no earned runs and also allowed zero inherited runners to score. You just won’t ever see a more dominant performance from a bullpen. J.P. Howell, and Grant Balfour came up huge and Chad Bradford was outstanding as well. Grade: A+.

Manager: The ride on the magical Maddon bus continued throughout this series. The Rays’ young talent – namely Longoria and Upton – led the way and beyond that, countless contributions were made by a host of other guys up and down the lineup. Maddon used the bullpen beautifully and this series demonstrated business as usual for the 2008 Rays. Grade: A.

Just minutes ago, Jed Lowrie’s walk-off single at Fenway Park put the Red Sox in the American League Championship Series against the Rays. I’m getting chills already. Stay tuned for my Rays-Red Sox ALCS preview coming on Wednesday.