My Two Cents: One Quarter Down for Rays, Much More Craziness to Come

TAMPA, Fla. — From the get-go, we knew this 2025 baseball season was going to be different. After more than a quarter century indoors at Tropicana Field, Hurricane Milton forced the Tampa Bay Rays to find a temporary home elsewhere. They chose Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, and it's worked.

It hasn't worked well, but it's worked.

We reached the quarter-pole of the season on Sunday — that went way too fast, didn't it? — and we've learned a lot about this experiment.

First off, and most importantly, there is no home-field advantage for the Rays. It's reflected in their record, and also how games are played.

It's different in the stands too, in a small, intimate ballpark with 10,000 seats. Fans of visiting teams — especially the Phillies, Yankees and Red Sox — took over the place and made all sorts of noise when their teams were doing well. The Rays were 2-8 in those games, for the record.

Here's what's gone on in the first 40 games, which was front-loaded with games in Tampa to help beat the summertime rains that are prevalent in Florida. Major League Baseball moved a series with the Los Angeles Angeles, and because of that, the Rays played 28 of their first 40 games at Steinbrenner Field. (There's another series moved in May, with the Minnesota Twins.)

They thought that would be a huge advantage, but Tampa Bay went only 11-17 in those first 28 ''home'' games. Hell, they've actually been better on the road by a wide margin, going 7-5. It was an opportunity wasted.

And they won't get it again.

Here's how their schedule looks by quarters:

FIRST QUARTER, March 28-May 11: The Rays had 28 home games, and just 12 on the road in their first 40. They are 18-22 overall, but just 5-14 vs. American League teams. Fortunately, they've been very good against the National League, going a majors-best 13-8 in interleague games.

SECOND QUARTER, May 13-June 26: Of the Rays' 41 games in the second quarter, 22 are at home and 19 are on the road. It starts with a road trip this week, first for three in Toronto and then three more in Miami against the state-rival Marlins. The flopped Twins series to Tampa is in this total.

THIRD QUARTER (June 27-Aug. 17): We'll call the third quarter 44 games because it ends with a long 12-game road trip to Los Angeles (Angels), Seattle, Sacramento and San Francisco that we don't want to break up. The flopped series with the Angels is part of this. During this seven-week window, the Rays play only 12 home games, with 32 on the road. This is going to be a grind, with a 10-game trip before the All-Star break, and that two-week West Coast trip at the end.

FOURTH QUARTER (Aug. 17-Sept. 28): In the final quarter of the season, the Rays will play 19 games at home and 18 on the road in the final 37, a more normal stretch. No trip is more than a week, and they stay in Chicago for six straight games against the White Sox and Cubs. The Rays end the season on the road with trips to Baltimore and Toronto. The final home game is Sept. 21 against Boston.

As it stands right now, the Rays are in fourth place in the American League, and trail the New York Yankees by five games already. They have issues, mostly that they don't score enough.

They have 150 runs, which ranks No. 24 in baseball. That's also inflated by two outliers, a 16-run game against the Red Sox and a 10-spot against the Yankees. That's 17.3 percent of their runs in just two games. They've been shut out six times since April 16, and have scored just one run four other times.

They haven't hit at all with runners in scoring position in this latest 4-8 run. After being a stunning No, 1 in baseball through 28 games with a .289 RISP average, they've been brutal ever since.

In the home sweep by Kansas City, they were just 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position, a pathetic .083 average. They were 4-for-16 in the sweep by the Phillies, and just 3-for-24 against Milwaukee, despite winning twice. That's a .154 average — at home. They have chances to score, and just don't do it.

The Rays' vaunted starting pitching has been good enough to win a lot of nights, but there's also been more than enough clunkers. Of the five starters, Drew Rasmussen has the lowest ERA at 3.38. That's 40th in baseball. Forty! That's not dominance. The others? Ryan Pepiot is at 3.86, Taj Bradley 4.24, Zack Littell 4.40 and Shane Baz 4.97.

What's worse are the downward trends, especially with Rasmussen and Baz. Rasmussen allowed just two earned runs total in his first four starts, but 13 in his last four. He didn't allow a homer in those first four games, but he's given up six in the last four.

Baz got off to a sizzling start, too. He has four starts where he allowed only three runs in 26 innings — a 1.04 ERA — but he's been clobbered in the other three, giving up 18 runs in 12 1/3 innings. That's an ugly 13.14 ERA.

That's why we have reason to be concerned with how the rest of this season is going to go. They had a real home-field advantage at Tropicana Field, and won often there. They don't get that at Steinbrenner Field. And it's going to be interesting to see how often the summer rains disrupt the daily routine. How many rainouts will we get? How wacky will all the rescheduling be? Even the little things, like taking batting practice and fielding some grounders, might go away day after day.

And that's just the weather stuff. Will the Rays hit better? I think so, but there's no guarantee. Will they find some power? They've only hit 32 so far, No. 26 in baseball. I don't see that changing, unless Brandon Lowe finally gets hot. I thought he'd have 10 homers by now with that short porch in right field at Steinbrenner. He has five, and is batting just .190 with 42 strikeouts.

That starting pitching? I don't really worry about them, because all five have quality stuff and Shane McClanahan will be back at some point this summer. I firmly believe we'll see a two-week stretch where they all dominate. They'll keep them in games, and if the timely hits finally come, they could get hot.

But we just don't know. It's just like guessing when the rains will come. We can guess, but there's no guarantee we'll be right.

It's going to be interesting to watch how it all plays out in these last three quarters. Keep those rain ponchos handy.