Every baseball season’s ending is bitter sweet. It’s a game that comes into our homes nightly for all summer. It’s a constant that we can count on, that can entertain and frustrate in oftentimes equal measures. It’s there for social times, for after work chilling times, heck also for at work times. It’s there to enjoy and share. But as the 2026 regular season comes to an end, for the Rays and our fans there’s still more to add to our story that stretches beyond September.
While today’s game did not
matter at all from a Rays perspective, and for the most part was a glorified Spring Training tune up (or in this case a Fall Training tune up), the 98 victories the Rays earned have granted them extra rest and time off so it’ll be a so long for now while we leave our Rays for 6 more days until we see them again.
Of course while the Rays have already wrapped everything they can wrap, the other side of things, the Phillies were fighting for the lives as their season hung in the balance. A nearly historic collapse and failure awaiting the Phillies if they couldn’t find a way to win just one game vs an already clinched team trying to get exercise.
Coming out today after a truly humiliating beat down at the hands of the class of the American League, the Phillies showed significantly more fight on this rainy Sunday afternoon.
Nick Martinez took the hill for a curtain call on his incredible 2026 regular season with the Rays. Not the sharpest we’ve seen Nick, but since it did have the vibe of Spring Training, perhaps for Martinez he harkened back to the Nick we saw last Spring that made us all question whether the signing was wise. Well, it turned out when the games mattered, Martinez comes to play and really forced the discussion of whether he was the greatest free agent signing in Tampa Bay Rays history.
In the sloppy conditions, Martinez was unable to hold the scratching and clawing Phillies down. A few close plays in the outfield that Mesa and DeLuca were unable to make, some liners that just find grass down the line, and Martinez departed getting his 50 pitches of work in with a fairly ugly line of 2.2 IP 7 hits and 4 ER.
Ian Seymour would come in to immediately helping our Nick’s season ERA by escaping the runners at 3rd and 2nd jam he left him, by beating out Carl Crawford’s son to first on the ground out.
After that Rays turned to newly shuttled up Jesse Scholtens to get some more innings eaten up to put the last stanza to the 2026 pitching poem. Of course this stanza helps to underline some running motif of the frivolity of dead ending at the alter of Pythagorean Theorem and run differential.
Rays hitters had a good homage to some earlier baseball from their season by leaving a ton of RISP (1-9 with RISP). However, no shutout on the day thanks to some big fly power from Johnny DeLuca, sending solo bombs over the LF and RF walls.
Finally, I wanted to highlight that Junior Caminero started today at 3B. That’s something every single one of our recaps could have said for all 162 games. In the modern game, that’s an incredible accomplishment. No DH time, starting every single game, waht this means not just from modern baseball perspective but for Caminero himself: this dude is improving. He not only repeated his breakout year last year by going over 40 HR and 100 RBI again, he took on the challenge of not being that defensive liability who Cash needed to sub out late in games. He took on that challenge instead of pouting. Instead of feeling entitled to it, he did the work needed to improve in the field, to become somebody that we can depend on. That’s true superstar behavior.
And up next for Junior: his first real true taste of October.
The Rays 2026 season brought us a ton of great moments and memories. Fun games, walkoffs, filthy pitching, dazzling defense, and some absolute top tier vibes. For Junior, and the rest of the Rays, they next get the chance to truly leave their mark in both team and baseball history. What you do in the regular season can be remembered fondly by fans, but what you do in October can never be forgotten.
