{"id":818592,"date":"2026-10-01T04:15:25","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T04:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/818592\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T04:15:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T04:15:25","slug":"it-will-be-rays-vs-yankees-in-the-american-league-division-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/818592\/","title":{"rendered":"It will be Rays vs. Yankees in the American League Division Series"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Tampa Bay Rays will face their ol\u2019 frenemies, the New York Yankees, in the American League Division Series that begins Saturday in St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n<p>The Yankees advanced by defeating the AL East rival Boston Red Sox 9-2 on Wednesday to sweep the best-of-three AL Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n<p>ALSO READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wusf.org\/sports\/2026-09-30\/boosted-rays-return-tropicana-field-mlb-attendance-rises-fourth-straight-year\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Boosted by Rays&#8217; return to Tropicana Field, MLB attendance rises for fourth straight year<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Next up for the Yankees: another division foe in Tampa Bay. <\/p>\n<p>First pitch on Saturday is at 6:30 p.m. at Tropicana Field.<\/p>\n<p>Game 2 of the best-of-five series is Monday at 8 p.m., also at the Trop.<\/p>\n<p>The teams move to Yankee Stadium for Game 3 and, if necessary, Game 4 on Oct. 7-8. If needed, Game 5 goes back to St. Petersburg on Oct. 10. Starting times for these games have not been announced.<\/p>\n<p>The Rays won the regular-season series, 7-6, and clinched the AL East title by defeating the Yankees 6-1 on Sept. 22 in New York. Tampa Bay\u2019s Drew Rasmussen took a no-hitter into the seventh inning of that game. <\/p>\n<p>The Rays (98-64) earned a first-round bye with the AL&#8217;s best record and finished 4.5 games ahead of second-place New York (93-68) in the division. <\/p>\n<p>ALSO READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wusf.org\/sports\/2026-09-30\/fans-hyped-for-tampa-bay-rays-playoff-run\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fans on both sides of Tampa Bay are hyped for the Rays&#8217; playoff run<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The teams&#8217; familiarity goes beyond the divisional rivalry. The Yankees host spring training at Tampa\u2019s Steinbrenner Field \u2013 in the heart of the Bay area \u2013 and the Rays used the facility for regular-season home games in 2025 because of hurricane damage at Tropicana Field.<\/p>\n<p>While no widely cited scientific survey has measured Yankees fandom in Tampa Bay, the club&#8217;s long-standing local presence and the sizable crowds it routinely draws at Rays games suggest it remains one of the region&#8217;s most popular out-of-market teams.<\/p>\n<p>Rays fans are invited to a postseason pop-up rally at Tampa\u2019s Midtown district on Thursday at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/rays\/tickets\/postseason\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Click here for playoff ticket information<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Rays will face their ol\u2019 frenemies, the New York Yankees, in the American League Division&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,4,297,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":["post-818592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-rays","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117363718479291739","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818592","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=818592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}