TAMPA — If the Rays return to the postseason this year, they will play all their home games at George M. Steinbrenner Field.
Major League Baseball has decided the Rays can host potential playoff games at Steinbrenner Field, which is serving as Tampa Bay’s temporary home this season after Tropicana Field sustained significant damage during Hurricane Milton last October.
Steinbrenner Field is the Yankees’ Spring Training ballpark and typically serves as the home for the Florida State League’s Single-A Tampa Tarpons. Between the end of Spring Training and Opening Day, the Rays moved in and made it feel like their regular-season home. This season, the maximum capacity at the ballpark is 10,046, the smallest in MLB.
The Athletic recently reported that MLB and the Rays held “preliminary conversations” about where the club would host postseason games. That report stated that the size of Steinbrenner Field “might force a move to a larger stadium” — a neutral site, in other words — if the Rays advanced far enough to host American League Championship Series or World Series games.
However, the Tampa Bay Times first reported on Tuesday that MLB would let the Rays remain in their interim home in Tampa Bay throughout October.
“Our rule has always been that people play in their home stadiums during the World Series,” Commissioner Rob Manfred told the Times before the All-Star Game in Atlanta. “And I’m not of a mind to change that rule. I understand it’s a unique situation. It’s different. But that’s where they’re playing. That’s where they’re going to play their games.”
For now, this remains a hypothetical concern. Along with each league’s three division winners, only the top Wild Card team is guaranteed to play home games in the playoffs. As the AL’s No. 6 seed in 2022, for example, the Rays were swept out of the postseason by the Guardians before they could host a game at Tropicana Field.
After hitting a 4-12 skid leading into the All-Star break, the Rays (50-47) are in fourth place in the AL East and fourth in the AL Wild Card standings. But they are very much in the race, sitting 5 1/2 games behind the division-leading Blue Jays, 3 1/2 back of the Yankees (currently the top AL Wild Card) and only 1 1/2 games out of the final Wild Card spot.
“We’ve got to worry about winning games,” Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander said on Thursday. “I think [the stretch] since that became a story has coincided with our record turning for the worse. There’s no one distracted by that. The guys are going about their work all the right way. Look, it’s nice to have clarity as to how that could play out, certainly, so it’s not some sort of risk for a lingering distraction of any sort. It’s great, but we need to take care of our business.”
Despite some early struggles at home this season, the Rays will enter the second half with a 28-25 record at Steinbrenner Field. With a front-loaded home schedule, they have only played three home games since June 23 — and they won’t see much of the ballpark off Dale Mabry Highway until September. Of the Rays’ next 39 games, only 14 will take place at home.
