PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — The Rays are used to uncertainty as they prepare for a regular season with home games at Tampa's Steinbrenner Field, the spring training base of the New York Yankees. “For us, this is what we’ve known,” Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander said Tuesday at the team's spring training complex.
Hurricane Milton ripped the roof off St. Petersburg's Tropicana Field on Oct. 9, leaving the stadium unusable for at least 2025.
In addition, the Rays have until March 31 to commit with the city of St. Petersburg on a planned $1.3 billion stadium that likely would open in 2029 at the earliest.
“We’ve had different types of uncertainty and questions hanging over our franchise for the entirety of the Rays era," Neander said. "And we found a way to win the third most games in baseball and appear in a couple World Series. This is what we do.
I think we do it pretty well.” Pitchers and catchers report Wednesday, and manager Kevin Cash said his team will be ready for the March 28 opener against Colorado. Steinbrenner, which has about 11,000 seats, is exposed to weather, unlike the Trop.
“There is an added element to it,” Cash said. “I’d like to think we’re going to have some time to build into that. Generally speaking, we’re going to have some pretty beautiful weather for the first month or two.
We’ll have a little better understanding of who we are as a pitching group and as a team going into some of those hot summer months. “Ou.