The trade deadline has come and gone, and the dog days of August are upon us. The Dodgers only made a few changes to their team, most notably sending Dustin May to Boston, shipping James Outman to Minnesota, and welcoming back relief pitcher Brock Stewart to the fold. Now, we ride. To live for the hope of it all.
First up in the month of months, one that the Dodgers hope goes better than July, are the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays have not had the best season, with their woes starting all the way back
in the fall.
Hurricane Milton ravaged the Tampa/St Pete area and destroyed the roof at Tropicana Field. The work to fix the roof is finally expected to begin this month and is slated to be done in April of 2026.
In the meantime, the Rays have been playing at George Steinbrenner Field, the Yankees spring training facility and the home to the Florida State league’s Single-A Tampa Tarpons. The maximum capacity is 10,046, which makes it the smallest in all of MLB.
Here is how the ballpark compares to current major league ballparks.
The Rays are just under .500, at 54-56. They are 4-9 since the All-Star break. They were busy at the trade deadline, trading a bunch of players, including reliever Zack Littell. They also picked up one of the better relievers on the trade market in Griffin Jax. They held on to core players in closer Pete Fairbanks, Yandy Díaz and Brandon Lowe.
The Dodgers did get some players from the Rays, including Paul Gervase who would be the tallest member of the team at 6’10 once he gets called up. The Dodgers also sent catcher Hunter Fedducia to the Rays as part of a three team trade. Rays fans hope they are still changing for the better as even though they are four games out of the wild card, the front office thinks the Rays still have a lot of fight in them.
Friday’s game will be at 7:35pm local time, but the other two will be in the early afternoon, when the weather will be in the mid 90s, and the real feel is into the 100s.
Clayton Kershaw will take the mound for the Dodgers Friday night, and he will be facing off against Shane Baz, a righty who is 8-7 with a 4.61 ERA. Kershaw is coming off of his worst outing of the season, allowing four runs to the Boston Red Sox in 4⅔ innings.
In Baz’s last outing, he went five innings against the Cincinnati Reds and allowed two earned runs. The outing before that, however, he only went four innings against the Chicago White Sox, allowing eight earned runs. The outing before that, only one run allowed in 6⅓ inning against the Boston Red Sox. He only had 12 strikeouts in those 15⅓ combined innings. So long story short, who knows what version of Baz the Dodgers will get.
This series will also feature the return of Blake Snell on Saturday, taking on his old team the Rays.
Friday game info
- Teams: Dodgers at Rays
- Ballpark: Steinbrenner Field, Tampa
- Start time: 4:35 p.m. PT
- TV: SportsNet LA, MLB Network (out of market)
- Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)
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- Dodgers 2018 MLB draft tracker
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- Dodgers draft LHP John Rooney in the 3rd round, No. 104 overall
