Major League Baseball on Monday announced an adjustment to the Tampa Bay Rays’ 2025 schedule to mitigate the possible effects of weather on games at the outdoor Steinbrenner Field, where the team will play next season because of damage caused to Tropicana Field, their typical home park, last month.
Rather than have the Rays host the Los Angeles Angels as originally planned in August, they’ll now host that series from April 8-10. The Rays will travel to California for another three-game series with the Angels beginning Aug. 4.
The Minnesota Twins’ visit to Steinbrenner Field was moved from Fourth of July weekend to May 26-28. The Rays will visit the Twins for a three-game series starting July 4.
The Rays will not play the 2025 season at Tropicana Field because of damage to the stadium and its roof caused by Hurricane Milton in October. Repairs for the stadium were estimated to cost more than $50 million.
Whether the Rays will be able to return to Tropicana in future seasons is still unknown. If construction were to begin in March, as laid out in a timeline in the damage estimate report, the repairs will not be completed until just days before the likely start of the 2026 season. The city of St. Petersburg, Fla., and the Rays still have to decide whether rebuilding is worth the investment because the team was already planning to move into a new stadium for 2028. However, that plan is currently on hold after the Pinellas County Board of Commissioners postponed a vote to approve bonds that would finance the ballpark’s construction.
Required reading
(Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images)
