NEW YORK — The Rays and Yankees have a long and complicated history.
Elliot Johnson. Shelley Duncan. “Derek Cheater.” A 3,000th hit. Game 162. CC Sabathia’s crotch grab. Aroldis Chapman. “A whole damn stable.” Mike Brosseau’s revenge. Whining hitters. Emptied benches. Bickering over scheduling issues, but also the use of Steinbrenner Field in 2025. And some “amazing” talks regarding the new Tampa ballpark project.
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As the at-times heated rivals meet up Tuesday at Yankee Stadium to open a four-games-in-three-days series, the agenda is pretty simple.
The Rays need to win one game in New York to win the American League East division title, with the added bonus of celebrating in their rivals’ home ballpark.
“I don’t know if there’s a better city to clinch in than New York,” Rays starter Griffin Jax said. “So, yeah, we’ll be enjoying it for sure when it happens.”
The Rays haven’t won a division title since 2021 and weren’t given much chance to do so this year, coming off back-to-back losing seasons and making what seemed to outsiders just meager offseason improvements.
Baseball operations president Erik Neander likes to point out that most of the insider and media experts projected the division to be a battle between Yankees and three other teams — but not the Rays.
But here they are, sporting an AL-best 95-60 record, sitting atop the division for the last 86 days (and 126 total) and holding a six-game lead over the Yankees with seven to play. Even if the Yankees sweep the series, the Rays can still claim the division title by winning two games in their final series at Philadelphia.
Even Yankees manager Aaron Boone sounded like the Rays’ coronation and celebration were inevitable.
“I mean, what are we, six (back?),” he said in Phoenix after Sunday’s loss. “That’s a tall task. We’ve got an off-day (Monday) and we’ll come ready to play some baseball on a long day Tuesday, and see where it goes.”
Boone acknowledged he’s more likely to use this week to get his team ready for their probable postseason path: a Wild Card Series matchup against the Red Sox that would start Sept. 29.
“You got to make sure guys are in a good spot going in,” Boone said to reporters. “… We’re going to show up and try to win the games on Tuesday, and then we’ll keep going from there. We’ve been through a lot as a team already, and we’ve answered the bell at mostly all the turns. Looking forward to hopefully playing a good week of baseball and building some momentum going into the postseason.”
The Yankees are planning to use their big four starters in the series — Carlos Rodon and Max Fried on Tuesday, Gerrit Cole on Wednesday and Cy Young award favorite Cam Schlittler on Thursday, and have their top relievers at the ready — but Boone said they could adjust those plans if they feel it will be a benefit for the playoffs.
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“First things first is we’re going to show up Tuesday and try and kick their butts,” he said. “Simple as that. And we’ll keep it simple. And then I’ll do what I think is best for the club and for the guys in trying to get us ready.”
If the Rays, who have won six of nine versus the Yankees, do win the division, and the Yankees win their opening-round best-of-three matchup with Boston (or the other way around), the teams would then meet in the second-round best-of-five Division Series.
“They’ve put together a great season to this point and put themselves in a great position, and got a ton or resect for the season they had so far,” Boone said of Tampa Bay. “Hopefully we’ll cross paths beyond (this week’s series) at some point in the future.”
The Rays and Yankees have battled plenty over the years, with the Rays coming a long way from their Devil Rays days, when they went 11-44 at Yankee Stadium in their first seven seasons, including a brutal 2004 when they were 0-10 there.
The Yankees still have a healthy overall head-to-head lead, 275-210, though since their 2008 breakthrough season the Rays are 155-164.
Plus the Rays won the only postseason meeting the teams have had, taking a tense five-game 2020 Division Series played in San Diego during the pandemic-impacted season.
Facing the Yankees with something on the line, and knowing the stadium will be rocking — at least for the nightcap — is exciting for the Rays.
Doing so from a position of power, and with a significant accomplishment (their sixth AL East title since 2008, plus a first-round playoffs bye) in their reach, and a celebration to follow, would seem to make it even more so.
“It’s fun regardless of where it happens,” Drew Rasmussen, who will pitch Tuesday’s nightcap with Nick Martinez handling the opener, said Sunday. “It’s one of those things that we hold our future in our own hands, and there’s no rather place you’d rather be.
“If we go ahead and we take care of business the next couple of days, we are going to be in a really good spot moving forward. And we have the opportunity to do it just because the team chasing us is on our schedule.”
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And in their sights.