{"id":665938,"date":"2026-04-06T05:52:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T05:52:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/665938\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T05:52:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T05:52:03","slug":"broken-stormwater-pipe-creates-parking-lot-depression-ahead-of-rays-return-to-tropicana-field-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/665938\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken stormwater pipe creates parking lot depression ahead of Rays&#8217; return to Tropicana Field"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A depression at the parking lot of Tropicana Field raised questions as excitement for the <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/rays-fans-businesses-count-down-202628549.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Tampa Bay Rays to play again at their home stadium builds up ahead of their first game;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Tampa Bay Rays to play again at their home stadium builds up ahead of their first game&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tampa Bay Rays to play again at their home stadium builds up ahead of their first game<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A section of parking lot seven at Tropicana Field was cordoned off just under 24 hours before the team and thousands of fans are expected to arrive. Part of the asphalt in the parking lot appeared to be damaged on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">St. Pete city officials told 10 Tampa Bay that a stormwater pipe broke under the parking lot at the site of the depression. When the pipe failed, stormwater washed away some of the ground, creating it, a city official said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">City crews have fixed the pipe, but couldn&#8217;t replace the fill dirt before opening day, the official added, noting that the city will complete the repairs in the parking lot once the Rays go on the road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">On April 6, the Tampa Bay Rays will return to Tropicana Field for the first time since 2024, when the stadium was damaged by Hurricane Milton, which impacted the area. The Rays will be playing at the Trop against the Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">After the stadium was damaged by Milton, the City of St. Petersburg spent months repairing the Trop, as they aimed to have it ready for the 2026 Major League Baseball season. The costly repairs of the stadium surpassed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtsp.com\/article\/news\/local\/pinellascounty\/tropicana-field-repairs-funding-st-pete\/67-d87f45bf-ac5a-4d61-9a85-adc7f188a705\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:$59 million price tag;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;$59 million price tag&quot;}\" class=\"link \">$59 million price tag<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">10 Tampa Bay reached out to the Rays to request comment, but at the time of publishing, did not hear back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A depression at the parking lot of Tropicana Field raised questions as excitement for the Tampa Bay Rays&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,24,54347,4,297,84794,2550,68,2551,2549,1966,8607],"class_list":{"0":"post-665938","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-chicago-cubs","10":"tag-depression","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-rays","13":"tag-stormwater-pipe","14":"tag-tampa-bay","15":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","16":"tag-tampabay","17":"tag-tampabayrays","18":"tag-the-rays","19":"tag-tropicana-field"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116356209403008407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665938","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=665938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}