My Two Cents: Rays Beat Heat in Romp Over Blue Jays, New Home Field Advantage Arrives

TAMPA, Fla. — The microphone finally worked its way to me in Kevin Cash's postgame press conference on Sunday, and I was curious about what had finally changed in the past week. His Tampa Bay Rays had just beaten the Toronto Blue Jays 13-0 for their fifth straight win at Steinbrenner Field, their temporary baseball home in Tampa.

The winning streak came on the heels of a 3-13 stretch at ''home,'' their digs for the year that usually serve as the spring training home of the New York Yankees and the summer home of their Class A minor-league team, the Tampa Tarpons.

The Rays playing here in what is basically a very nice minor-league stadium that seats around 10,000 people because Hurricane Milton decimated Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg last fall.

So they've been playing their home games here — 34 of their first 52 so far in a front-loaded schedule — but for the longest time, it didn't really feel like home. And during that 3-13 stretch, it felt like they didn't even have a ''home field advantage'' at all.

Then they win five in a row, two against the Houston Astros, and three against the Blue Jays. So I was curious. Is the narrative finally different? Do the Rays finally feel at home?

I just had to ask.

"When you had that 3-13 stretch, the conversation had to be about not playing well here,'' I said to Cash. "To win five in a row here and do it impressively, can that narrative kind of go away? Is there any sense at all that people are feeling more comfortable here?

Cash looked at me and laughed.

"I think that's more a good question for you, that the narrative should go away,'' he said with a smile. "I hope it goes away. I want to continue playing well, we all want to continue playing well and create a home-field advantage. When we started the season, we knew it could take some time and we could have played better, no doubt. But we've been really pleased about what we've done and what we've accomplished in the past two series.''

What we've learned this week — and especially in wins on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons under the blazing hot Florida sun — is that there are two things in play right now that do indeed give the Rays a real and legitimate home field advantage. This week, it helped them a lot, really for the first time since they moved across the bay.

And it should help them even more going forward. One is that playing outdoor baseball when the game-time temperature is over 90, the official ''feels-like'' temp is over 100 and really feels like a million is something the Rays are already getting used to.

Their opponents are not. The Astros and Blue Jays, both dome teams, withered under the intense rays — no pun intended.

And the second critical thing? These visiting teams? They really don't want to be here. And they finally admitted it on Sunday.

Here in Tampa Bay, we are glad that there was an alternative for the Rays to stay close to home after the hurricane. We're grateful to the Yankees for renting the stadium, and we're thrilled we can keep moving forward despite the wicked curveball from Mother Nature that tore apart the Trop, the Rays' indoor home for 27 seasons.

Blue Jays manager John Schneider admitted Sunday after getting swept in the three-game series and outscored 19-2 that this was not a good experience. Playing in a glorified minor-league ballpark isn't what they signed up for, so he whined.

And he whined publicly. For the first time.

“I know that we’re capable of doing that,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said when asked about playing better baseball after three days of sthinking up the place. “I think that today was the first time, halfway through the game, that the environment (at Steinbrenner Field) creeps into your head a little bit. It’s tough. It’s really hot. The environment is just different.

"I don’t want to say that we’re spoiled, but everyone has earned the right to play in the big leagues at a big-league ballpark, so I think that creeps in a bit today. The highs and lows, we have to figure that out. We have to be better at being more consistent. That’s when you see the true identity of who we are.”

Ah, there's the home-field advantage. Finally. Mother Nature — this time bearing gifts with that beautiful flaming orb in the sky — is giving the Rays the edge.

The Jays, who train in nearby Dunedin every spring, play in a dome back in Toronto, though they do open the roof occasionally. They are used to playing two or three series a year here in the dome at the Trop. These were their first three games this year in the intense heat, and they were no shows.

They lost 3-1 both of the first two nights, only getting four hits one night, and six the next. They were flat-out embarrassing Sunday, losing 13-0 with just four hits again. They hit 14-for-88 — that's a .159 average — and made it very clear they didn't want to be here.

Schneider even admitted it.

It was crazy hot Sunday, and it was hot for the Rays players, too. It was the same on Wednesday, but I didn't really put it together then. Houston starter Hunter Brown, who's been the best right-handed pitcher in baseball this season, got knocked around for the first time all year, giving up five runs in five innings in an 8-4 loss.

He had six starts of allowing one run or less this season, but withered in the Florida heat. He just didn't have it, and the Rays took advantage.

That's the edge we've been waiting for.

Rays pitcher Ryan Pepiot handled the elements well, pitching seven scoreless innings. But he was also prepared for it. He's learned quickly how to deal with the heat, finding a chair in the tunnel behind the dugout, out of the sun and in the cool air-conditioned breeze.

Advantage, Rays.

"It was hot, but it's only going to get worse from here,'' Pepiot said. "I've got a little cooling area inside the tunnel, and do whatever you can to stay cool. I've got extra jerseys in the clubhouse, guys are ready to run back and throw them in the dryer if I need them.

"I was a little superstitious today and went with only one, and it was not dry by any means. We do whatever we can. It's part of the game and we were expecting it this year. It's not an excuse that we were ever going to make.''

The excuses, it looks like, will come from the opponents. And that's a good thing.

No one on the Rays side felt the heat more than catcher Ben Rortvedt, who spent a couple of hours wearing the tools of ignorance as well. It's crazy hot behind the plate with all that gear on. Still, it was fun, catching Pepiot and driving in three runs himself, the first time he's done that all year.

"Yeah, it was brutal out there and I was sweating like crazy,'' Rortvedt said. "I tried different things. Went through three or four jerseys, tried a T-shirt underneath for a while, but they all got soaked.

"It's OK, especially on a day like today where we're all playing so well. It's part of the game for us this year, and we're just going to embrace it. We're used to it, and we'll be fine.''

Major League Baseball did their best to front-load the Rays schedule, giving them a lot of April and May games at home to avoid the heat and the summer-time rains. The heat is here, with the rains to come.

The Rays' series with the Los Angeles Angels on April 8-10 was supposed to be played in California, but it was flopped. The Rays will go out there instead as part of a two-week road trip to Anaheim, Seattle, Sacramento and San Francisco in mid-August.

It's the same on Monday and for the next few days with the Minnesota Twins in town. Their season series was flopped, too, with the Rays now going to Minneapolis in July as the start of a 10-day road trip before the All-Star break.

That's why after Wednesday the Rays will have played 37 of their first 55 games at home, nearly half of the their home schedule in just nine weeks. There are plenty of long road trips ahead to avoid the rain and sweltering heat.

But for now, maybe the Rays have found an edge. It's going to be 90 degrees every day for this Twins series, and they've been playing in cold weather for two months. Advantage Rays, especially with another day game on Wednesday before going to Houston for the weekend.

"The results of late, we've been feeling really good about it,'' Cash said. "I'm happy for the guys. We've got three more games here to finish up, so this could be a really good homestand for us.''

Sunny and warm. Ah, the magic recipe.

Related stories on Rays baseball