{"id":640245,"date":"2026-03-24T05:36:54","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T05:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/640245\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T05:36:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T05:36:54","slug":"where-are-the-rays-playing-this-season-how-tropicana-field-fits-in-2026-plans-for-tampa-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/640245\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are the Rays playing this season? How Tropicana Field fits in 2026 plans for Tampa Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where are the Rays playing this season? How Tropicana Field fits in 2026 plans for Tampa Bay<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> dealt with a very unusual home stadium arrangement in 2025.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

They had to play all their home games at George M. Steinbrenner Field, which is usually the Spring Training home of the New York Yankees<\/a>, because Tropicana Field wasn’t available.<\/p>\n

The Trop had its roof torn off by Hurricane Milton in October 2024. That made it unplayable.<\/p>\n

But as the 2026 MLB season approaches, things have changed, and the Rays are going to get to make a sort of homecoming.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Big Papi’s son has a special moment for the Red Sox<\/a><\/p>\n

Where are the Rays playing this season?<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Rays are returning to Tropicana Field for the 2026 MLB season.<\/p>\n

After the single season away, the Trop has been revamped and readied for the season ahead.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

“We can\u2019t wait to open the doors of Tropicana Field on April 6, 2026 and bring fans back home!” the Rays wrote in a post on their official website<\/a>. “The recovery process following Hurricane Milton in October 2024 required patience and persistence, and we\u2019re grateful for the support along the way. Now that the roof is secure, we\u2019re in the final stretch and focused on preparing the ballpark for baseball UNDER THE ROOF!”<\/p>\n

The Rays installed a number of upgrades to their ballpark in the meantime, so it should feel like a fresh experience for those fans returning to Tropicana Field.<\/p>\n

Mostly, it’s just exciting news for those who missed the Rays having their own home ballpark. Tropicana Field is back in action.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Where are the Rays playing this season? How Tropicana Field fits in 2026 plans for Tampa Bay originally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,55477,10176,16181,4,62,297,89,2550,68,2551,2549,1966,8607],"class_list":{"0":"post-640245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-big-papi","10":"tag-george-m-steinbrenner-field","11":"tag-hurricane-milton","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-new-york-yankees","14":"tag-rays","15":"tag-red-sox","16":"tag-tampa-bay","17":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","18":"tag-tampabay","19":"tag-tampabayrays","20":"tag-the-rays","21":"tag-tropicana-field"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116282539614201002","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}