SARASOTA, Fla. — When the Orioles get a second, and last, spring training look at the Tampa Bay Rays here March 30 it no doubt will serve as a reminder of last year’s disaster — and the impending immediate goal for this season.

It is a modest goal, to be sure.

As they wade somewhat ceremoniously (because it’s hard not to notice) into the fourth year of an already well-documented rebuild, the immediate task at hand for the O’s is to match last year’s win total against the Rays. Doing so would require only one win in the three-game series that begins in St. Petersburg, Fla., a week from Friday.

Like we said, a seemingly modest goal. But based on what happened last year, it would be an accomplishment bordering on monumental.

The Rays are defending American League East champions largely because they dismantled the Orioles to the tune of 18 wins in 19 games a year ago. It is the kind of mastery that the Blue Jays, Yankees and Red Sox are counting on to be unsustainable.

An 18-1 record against a division foe would make the task of the other three teams impossible, as it was a year ago. If the Orioles are going to show any progress it will have to start with an improvement in their dismal record against the Rays last season.

That they get this challenge to start the season is a direct result of the rearranged schedule induced by the lockout that postponed the first six games of the 2022 schedule. While the Orioles may present a slightly different look than they did a year ago, they can expect pretty much the same old, same old from the Rays, who have grown up in 24 years from an expansion baby to one of the most consistent teams in baseball.

And in an age driven by analytics that the Rays were among the first to embrace, it may come as a surprise that they haven’t abandoned the old fashioned way.

“There is an idea that they are completely driven by data and analytics,” said a veteran National League scout who has the Rays organization on his assignment sheet. “They do use data, but they are teaching the game at every level with veteran coaches and instructors and they do a good job all through the organization. They play the game the right way.”

Other teams are, or should be, paying attention. It should be noted that the Rays never adopted the “tanking” method so prevalent today. In their 24-year history, they have lost 100 games only three times, as many as the Orioles have lost in the last three full seasons. And those three seasons all came in the club’s first 10 years of operation.

Since their breakthrough year in 2008, when they lost to the Phillies in the World Series, the Rays have been below .500 four times — consecutive years from 2014-2017 — but posted 80-82 records in two of those years, which hardly count.

Make no mistake, Tampa Bay is the team others are trying to emulate, even as they sometimes go about it a different way. A good way to judge the Orioles’ improvement in the coming years is to gauge their record against the Rays.

Reaching that initial modest goal in the first weekend of the season would be a start.

Jim Henneman can be reached at JimH@pressboxonline.com

Photo Credit: David Driver/PressBox