With hurricane damage banishing them from climate-controlled Tropicana Field to an insufferable outdoor waystation for one season, Tampa Bay has learned to endure the elements and relish the road and now, they’re getting a big dose of bags and buses, charters and lobby coffee.
In hopes of mitigating untenable outdoor summer conditions at George M. Steinbrenner Field – where the magnanimous New York Yankees are allowing them to crash this year as Tropicana Field undergoes repairs – Major League Baseball frontloaded the Rays’ schedule with home games, the better to play under April showers than July thunder.
And as the season careens into the second half, the Rays have a home/road schedule split that many would find untenable: Thirty-one games left at home, 47 on the road.
But there’s fewer pop-up showers that ruin batting practice on the road, only for stultifying tropical air to linger through gametime. There’s no wild gusts of wind that can turn an infield pop-up into a warning-track adventure or cause a slider to break in a manner the pitcher does not expect.
And most of all, there’s not that humidity, the kind that makes world-class athletes cower indoors for as long as possible, the better to save their electrolytes for game time.
“Now,” Rays right-hander Ryan Pepiot tells USA TODAY Sports, “whoever spends the least amount of time on the field probably has the best chance of winning. You think about football and teams that have the most time of possession tend to win. We want to have the least amount of time of possession. Spend the least amount of time out there, get our guys out of the heat.
“Get off the field.”
And get out of town, typically with a win.
The Rays, nondescript at best and bedraggled at worst when the season began, have used this first half both to develop an identity and reestablish themselves as an American League power. At 47-37, they’re just 1 ½ games behind the Yankees in the AL East, with a firm clutch on the No. 1 wild card position.
A mashup of veterans and youth – a largely similar group produced an 80-82 mark last year – has coalesced behind an unlikely trio of young players, a stout and wildly healthy pitching staff and the vibes that come with making the best of a remarkably suboptimal situation.
“It was completely out of everybody’s control. You can’t decide if a roof gets torn off the Trop or not,” says second baseman Brandon Lowe, who along with slugger Yandy Diaz and closer Pete Fairbanks are the last remaining players from their 2020 World Series team. “As soon as it happened I was kind of like, ‘OK, whatever happens, we found a place to play. We’ll make it our own.’
“The circumstances didn’t bring us together. I think how close this group already was and how close we could be helped everybody make the transition and do it easier.”
And they’re likely ushering in another prosperous era for the Rays – at a very uncertain time.
Jonathan Aranda powers up
It’s not just Tropicana Field, which is being repaired by the city of St. Petersburg under terms of the Rays’ lease and should be operational in 2026. The much-maligned but pleasant dome will be the Rays’ home through at least 2028.
Yet the team backed out of a deal for a massive development and stadium project adjacent to the Trop after Hurricane Milton’s devastation delayed full approval of the deal. The franchise is now for sale, with Jacksonville developer Patrick Zalupski submitting a letter of intent to purchase the team, and Memphis hedge fund founder Trip Miller aiming to counteroffer.
A new buyer would inherit a team with a gaggle of emerging talent.
None are as unlikely as first baseman Jonathan Aranda, who had three shots to stick with the Rays from 2022-24 – and could not do it.
Aranda found more runway this spring, with a full winter to take advantage of last summer’s trade of infielder Isaac Paredes. And Aranda has made himself indispensable.
He leads the team with 3.1 WAR and ranks third in the AL in batting (.325) and OPS (.902), his name literally encroaching upon Aaron Judge in both categories.
Saturday, he crushed a 467-foot home run, third-longest in the club’s Statcast era, a clout that had his teammates clamoring for his addition to the AL’s All-Star squad next month in Atlanta.
Aranda? He’s still grateful for the opportunity to stay on the field, to see his name in Kevin Cash’s lineup every day.
“I feel very happy with the confidence the manager and other guys have given me,” Aranda tells USA TODAY Sports via club translator Eddie Rodriguez. “I’m a confident player and I’m a player that’s been waiting for my opportunity.
“Thank God this year, I was able to get this opportunity. I feel very strong and very confident about being here.”
It’s been a 10-year battle to stick, since the Rays signed him out of Tijuana in 2015. As Aranda methodically climbed the organizational ladder, finally reaching full-season Class A ball in 2019, his best friend from Tijuana, Alejandro Kirk, was zipping through the Toronto Blue Jays system, making his big league debut in 2020.
Aranda, 27, is six months older than Kirk and has known the burly catcher “since I’ve had a memory.” Now, he may join him in notching an All-Star appearance.
His skill set fits snugly into the Rays’ puzzle.
“It’s a unique situation,” says Aranda. “We have a little bit of everything: We have power hitters, we have contact hitters, basestealers. It marks the difference between us and 29 other teams.”
He’s not wrong. The Rays reached the season’s halfway mark as just the fourth team to hit at least 85 homers and steal at least 100 bases; one of the three clubs to precede them was Cincinnati’s 1977 Big Red Machine.
Junior Caminero breaks out
If there is a bona fide star in the Rays’ midst, it is Junior Caminero, whose widely expected breakout took a minute to get going this season. Caminero, 21, was slashing .240/.273/.432 through his first 32 games.
In the 28 games since? He’s produced 14 homers and an .892 OPS and had 20 homers by the halfway point, joining Eddie Mathews, Albert Pujols and Cody Bellinger as the lone 21-year-olds to pull that off.
The breakout is unfolding.
“I recognize that I have the talent to be here,” Caminero, a Dominican Republic native, says via Rodriguez. “I don’t put pressure on myself. I thank God and I thank Cashy for the opportunity. I’m not paying attention to anything else outside, if they’re going to send me down or anything like that.
“I know that I belong here.”
As he speaks, veteran outfielder Christopher Morel aims to rattle the young slugger, and Caminero turns and playfully smacks him in the chest. More often, Caminero is playing follow the leader with the Rays’ veteran core.
“The team is really united, regardless if you’re a veteran or not,” he says. “I can go to Yandy or B-Lowe or they can come to me and say something. I think that’s what’s carried us to this point we are now – that camaraderie, that unity we have.
“We go out there to perform and thank God we’re where we are right now.”
Says outfielder Josh Lowe: “Whether it’s Junior or Aranda, both of them getting their first full chance at the big leagues, it’s impressive. Junior got his teeth kicked in a little bit at the beginning of the season. It didn’t go as smoothly as he’d thought. And he turned it around.
“Man, he’s been incredible. He’s a treat when he’s in the box, a treat on the field. He’s a good person, a good player and man, he puts the work in behind the scenes. He’s an awesome kid and I’m happy to see all the success he’s had so far.”
Jake Mangum becomes indispensable
Diaz, Caminero, Aranda and Brandon Lowe have combined for 61 of the Rays’ 92 home runs. Yet it is the diversity of the Rays’ portfolio that would make them a particularly daunting playoff team.
They lead the major leagues in stolen bases with 108, and Chandler Simpson, perhaps the fastest man in the majors, is back in center field after a trip to the minors to work on his defense.
Yet it is left fielder Jake Mangum who has seized opportunity and not looked back.
Mangum has been slept on since he was patrolling the outfield at Mississippi State in the late 2010s. He was picked in the 30th and 32nd rounds by the Yankees and Mets in consecutive years, swallowed his pride and returned for a senior season in Starkville.
By 2019, the Mets saw fit to burn a fourth-round pick on Mangum but dealt him to Miami in December 2022; a year later, he was a player to be named in a five-team deal with the Rays.
This March, fate finally intervened: Josh Lowe strained an oblique during the opening week and Mangum, at 29 years old, made his major league debut.
He was easy to overlook; Mangum hit just 24 home runs in six minor league seasons. Yet he’s a contact machine, striking out just 9% of the time in college and 13% in his first 178 major league plate appearances.
Now, he’s slashing .316/.354/.392, playing elite defense in left field and is 10 for 11 in stolen-base attempts. They are skills that took a while to be appreciated, especially when “senior sign” and “longtime minor leaguer” are difficult tags to shake.
“Sure, did I want to leave college earlier? Yeah, absolutely,” says Mangum, son of former Chicago Bears defensive back John Mangum. “But there’s nothing about my game that jumps off the charts. I’m not like an elite speed guy. I’m a good runner, but I’m not some 80-grade runner.
“I just try to help any way I can, man.”
A trade to the Rays, and their come-as-you-are ethos, certainly helped.
“If I tailored my game to pro baseball and wouldn’t have made it, I would have lived with a lot of regret,” he says.
“So, I just said, let’s play my game and if I don’t make it, I’ll be able to sleep at night.”
Says Cash: “He has really added a dynamic to our lineup that’s been pretty spectacular, special. It’s not Chandler speed, but you see the urgency, what middle infielders have to do to get rid of the ball. His ability to put the bat on everything gets taxing for a pitching staff.”
‘We want to be here’
Now, the Rays attack the back nine of a season that, despite literal storm clouds, has been charmed in many ways.
Their phenomenal 27-6 start to the 2023 season was waylaid by a torrent of devastating arm injuries to the pitching staff; this year, they’ve used just six starting pitchers and their rotation ranks second in the majors in innings pitched and third in WHIP.
As for the conditions at home? Well, they made good use of offseason urges to hydrate, recover, and stay out of the heat.
“Well, it’s been hot,” says Josh Lowe, dryly. “It’s no secret: Florida in the summertime is a beast. But if you look at our schedule, we’re at the halfway point and so 50-plus of those (second half) games are on the road. Not to say we’re not going to play games at home, but at least we know that most of our schedule hopefully comes in better weather than playing in Florida.”
Indeed, the Rays are six games into a stretch of 16 road dates in 19 games. From July 25 through Aug. 31, they’ll play 25 of 33 games on the road, including a 12-game trip to Anaheim, Seattle, Sacramento and San Francisco.
Those bay breezes should only accentuate the quality hang time the lads are anticipating.
“We had a goal this year to be a cohesive unit. Not just the pitchers hanging out, not just the hitters hanging out, but just everybody being inclusive,” says Pepiot. “I think that’s shown throughout the season.
“It’s felt like a very close clubhouse. We want to be here.”
Wherever “here” may be.