It’s not often in a baseball season that one sees the violation of a rule that seemed otherwise to be part of the natural order of things. With nearly a quarter of the season gone, the Yankees are looking up at the Tampa Bay Rays, something that had not previously happened at the same point of the season in any of the 10 years that the Rays have been in existence. The traditional order might be restored later this season. Then again, it might not.

The Rays did pass the Yankees at a later point in the season last year. On June 4, the Yankees and Rays were tied for last place in the American League East, with identical 24-31 records. At that point, the two teams diverged. The Yankees kicked off a nine-game winning streak the next day, and then, after struggling on a West Coast interleague road trip, resumed their hot play with a 19-9 record in July. The Rays would finish out June and begin July with an 11-game losing streak. The two clubs would never be close again.

The gap between the Rays and Yankees may prove to be just as transient as last year’s lack of a gap. After all, the Yankees almost literally came back from the dead last year — a team with a sub-.500 record 55 games into the season has less right to play in the postseason than a corpse does to vote in Chicago. The reason for the gap, at its most basic level, is that the Rays have scored more runs than they have allowed, while the Yankees have basically broken even. In the Rays’ case, last season’s major weakness — a bullpen that verged on the historically pathetic — has made a 180-degree turn. The team’s gamble on closer Troy Percival, retired two years ago, has paid off, and this unusual stability at the end of games has allowed manager Joe Maddon to actually structure his bullpen, rather than run a continual fire drill.

The starting rotation has been less of an advantage than advertised at season’s start, largely because Scott Kazmir failed to make his season debut until May 4 and has pitched just twice. His return leaves the Rays still looking for an elusive third solid starter to follow Jamie Shields. Edwin Jackson has shown signs that he can least hold a job, which is more than could be said for the veteran 24-year-old in the past. Other candidates, including Andy Sonnanstine, Matt Garza, and Jason Hammel, have been subpar without being disastrous — not in the way, say, that Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy have been for the Yankees.

Almost the whole difference between the two clubs is embodied in the difference between Sonnanstine and Garza and Kennedy and Hughes. All four are young pitchers, generally untried. There are even some broad similarities between Sonnanstine and Kennedy, who both succeed by throwing strikes rather than burning batters with nuclear-powered stuff. Simply, even though they have not always pitched well, they have done enough most nights to give their team a chance to win. The Rays are 6-2 in Sonnanstine’s appearances. They were 2-3 in Garza’s, pending the outcome of last night’s game. Compare this to the Hughes and Kennedy starts, where the Yankees were 2-9. The difference is that the two Rays, while sometimes battered, have not been beaten past the point that good run support would save them. That has not been the case with the Yankees.

The Yankees have taken steps to rectify that problem by eliminating Hughes and Kennedy from the rotation (one might say that Hughes was eliminated for them, but they seemed to be heading in that direction even before his rib injury was discovered). Darrell Rasner isn’t any kind of savior. But at worst, he should be functional in a Garza/Sonnanstine-like way, buying the Yankees time to work out a solution to the final spot in the rotation, be it a Kennedy reinvigorated by dipping his toe in the minors or some other hurler.

Both teams have a way to go on offense. The Rays’ infield is in a dead zone, while the Yankees’ problems with injuries and unexpectedly soft performances from longtime stars have been well-documented. In both cases, these problems should take care of themselves, but how this affects the final standings depends on who starts hitting first and the degree of the turnaround. The Yankees were able to get separation from the Rays last year, but passing them this year will prove a harder trick, particularly if the fixes don’t kick in soon. Seasons are not often saved after the one-third mark (or the one-quarter mark for that matter), and just because the Yankees did it last year doesn’t mean they will be able to do it again. The Rays aren’t necessarily a better team than the Yankees, just better so far. But in baseball, where the standings are less volatile than they seem at first, “so far” has a way of taking on permanent status in the record books.

Mr. Goldman writes the Pinstriped Bible for yesnetwork.com.