The Rays are not like, say, Alabama, able to pick a few soft foes on their schedule to inflate the final record. They had no say in who they opened against. And with a return to a balanced schedule in 2023, the rest of the AL East contenders will get their own shots at Detroit, Washington and Oakland.

Want to add Colorado and Miami, too? How about Kansas City, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, especially now that the Pirates have lost emerging shortstop Oneil Cruz for four months after he fractured his left ankle Sunday?

Maybe it is just how my mind works, but when contemplating what sticks out two weekends into this season, it was not how good the Rays might be this year, but:

1. How bad some teams might be. There are always terrible clubs. I am just wondering whether the substantial dollars spent by a larger handful of organizations (Spotrac had eight teams with payrolls above $200 million to begin this season and 14 projected to finish above that level for luxury-tax purposes) combined with familiar incompetence is going to skew the bell curve with fewer teams in the middle and more at the top and especially way on the bottom.

MLB has been trending this way. There have been four seasons in which four teams have lost 100-plus games, including the last three 162-game campaigns (2019, 2021, 2022). There were three 100-plus loss teams in 2018. Thus, in the last four 162-game seasons there have been 15 100-plus loss teams. There were 14 in the 13 seasons from 2005-17.

At the very least, the record of five 95-plus loss teams in 2018 appears in play.

The Rays’ plus-57 run differential in opening 9-0 was the best through nine games in the modern game (since 1900). But the Tigers already were minus-35. The A’s were minus-45. That was the third worst ever through nine games in the Live Ball Era (since 1920). And it is the worst since the 1988 Orioles were minus-48 through nine games en route to a season-opening 21-game losing streak.

2. Of course, we are not going to ignore the Rays. From 2018-through the weekend, Tampa Bay had a .587 winning percentage. Only the Dodgers (.644), Astros (.618) and Yankees (.604) were better.

But the Rays have done this both on a shoestring and by changing players and identity in that time. And they have reached the best version of themselves arguably ever with two items sticking out:

1. They have used 27 players and each is between 22-31. The 22-year-old is Wander Franco, their best player and, thus, precociously already performing at an elite level. The next youngest is third baseman 24-year-old Isaac Paredes, who had played in three major league seasons before 2023. In other words, this is a roster of prime-age players, not one with youngsters working their way up or older players holding on.

2. Tampa Bay annually has mastered run prevention, marrying high-end defense with maximizing the stuff of its pitchers. But the Rays’ offense has a chance to be special this year. Tampa Bay has had good scoring years, but the exchange was almost always mix-and-match players and high strikeout totals — the Rays have struck out the most in the AL in four of the past seven seasons.

This year Tampa Bay may have a core with Franco, Paredes, Randy Arozarena, Yandy Diaz, Brandon Lowe and perhaps a few others such as Jose Siri and Josh Lowe who are not platoon guys, but just everyday, above-average producers. Perhaps this reflects bad pitching by Detroit, Washington and Oakland, but Tampa Bay had the AL’s lowest strikeout percentage at 16.5 — that is down from 23.2 percent, a 6.7 percent gap being the largest in the majors.

3. No surprise that the Rays completed the weekend with MLB’s best rotation ERA at 1.90. But you know who was second?

The Twins at 2.24.

Even with Kenta Maeda, who did not pitch last season after Tommy John surgery, allowing the White Sox four runs in six innings Monday, the rotation ERA is 2.62. Plus, that represented the 10th time in 10 games that a Twins starter lasted at least five innings — its longest such stretch since Aug. 18-30, 2019, an 11-game streak. That helps protect a suspect bullpen.

Minnesota has been among the majors’ most disappointing teams the past two years. There is no singular reason why, but having a 4.65 rotation ERA (12th out of 15 AL teams) combined in 2021-22 has been instrumental.

The Twins have the only rotation (projecting the five main starters) that wholly consists of pitchers obtained in trades: Maeda before the 2020 season, Joe Ryan at the 2021 trade deadline, Sonny Gray before last season, Tyler Mahle at last year’s trade deadline and Pablo Lopez before this season.

The acquisition of Ryan from the Rays, mainly for Nelson Cruz, has been an under-the-radar terrific deal for Minnesota.

This group might not give Minnesota a true ace. But do the Twins have a bunch of capable Nos. 2-4 starters? If so they would be the biggest challenge to the Guardians in an AL Central with the woeful Royals and Tigers, plus the White Sox — despite a top tier of talent — still having to prove that they have cohesion, defense and depth.