Pictured above: The view of Tropicana Field on the night of ALDS Game 1 against the Red Sox.
Courtesy of the Tampa Bay Rays
By Max Steele
On Oct. 2 at the Yankee Stadium, the Tampa Bay Rays achieved a milestone yet to be reached in franchise history: a 100-win regular season.
The Rays accomplished this by defeating the Yankees in a 12-2 win led by Brandon Lowe’s three home run game and later finished the year with a record 100 wins and 62 losses.
What makes this feat even more impressive is that Tampa Bay accomplished it in one of the most competitive divisions in Major League Baseball history.
The 2021 American League (AL) East division saw four of its five teams (TB Rays, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays) reach over 90 wins in the regular season. This is the first time this has occurred since the six-division format was implemented in 1995.
Three of these AL East teams also reached the postseason, with the Rays winning first place in the AL and the Yankees and Red Sox securing Wild Card spots.
It’s also worth noting that Tampa Bay has one of the lowest salary caps in the entire league, meaning they don’t have a large budget to spend on players. Meanwhile, the Yankees and Red Sox both notoriously rank inside the top five highest salary caps with over double what the Rays can afford.
With Boston defeating New York 6-2 in the Wild Card game, the No. 1 Rays face off against a familiar No. 4 Red Sox team in a best-of-five American League Divisional Series (ALDS). The two teams met 19 times during the regular season, with the Rays getting the best of those matchups with a record of 11-8.
Tampa Bay’s Head Coach Kevin Cash, who formerly played for the Red Sox in 2007, said “Boston is always a challenge” but is confident that his team can overcome this obstacle.
The Rays won the first game of the series against Boston 5-0, lost the second 14-6, and lost the third game 6-4 in extra innings. The next game of the series is Oct. 11 at 7:07 p.m.
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Max Steele is a junior digital communication and multimedia journalism major at USF St. Petersburg.
