NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Belting out \u201cTheme from New York, New York\u201d as they locked arms in the visitors’ clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, the Tampa Bay Rays reveled with satisfaction after sweeping baseball’s most storied team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best team in the world right here,\u201d Tampa Bay star Junior Caminero said Wednesday night after the Rays earned a matchup with the Chicago White Sox or Cleveland Guardians in their first American League Championship Series since 2020.<\/p>\n
Fresh off a three-game sweep of the Yankees in their Division Series, the Rays on Monday will host an ALCS game at Tropicana Field for the first time since 2008 \u2014 their 2020 seven-game win over Houston was played at San Diego’s Petco Park because of the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love popping bottles,” said Ryan Vilade, a 27-year-old journeyman who played his first game since Sept. 27 in the Game 3 clincher against New York. \u201cI love drinking beer and I love popping bottles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vilade and Victor Mesa Jr. homered in Tampa Bay’s 4-3 victory Wednesday night. During the celebration, Caminero mimicked late Yankees broadcaster John Sterling, yelling: \u201cTheeee Yankees lose!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got two more bites \u2014 two more bites on the bone!\u201d manager Kevin Cash screamed. \u201cNobody sleeps!\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay finished an AL-best 98-64 in the regular season, then dominated the Yankees to reach its third ALCS and remain on track for a possible first World Series title.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll enjoy it and we\u2019ll have a little time here to organize ourselves,\u201d president of baseball operations Erik Neander said. “When you’ve got five starters throwing the way these do, it makes it a little easier not to overthink it too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay was just behind Milwaukee for the top regular-season team batting average, .2585 to .2581, and led the AL in on-base percentage. The Rays were second in the AL with a .296 batting average on balls in play.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe identity of our team, that\u2019s kind of the versatility that we have,\u201d outfielder Jonny DeLuca said. \u201cA lot of our guys are quick and fast in putting the ball in play, and I think in playoffs it makes a huge difference, whether it\u2019s getting down the line, baserunning, defense, whatever it is. I think the speed is a huge aspect to our game, and, yeah, it\u2019s helped us a lot.”<\/p>\n
Cash, who led his team to the postseason for the sixth time in eight years, arrived in the interview room Wednesday night relatively dry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my second shirt, second hat. I\u2019ve changed it twice,\u201d he said. \u201cCami just sprayed something on me and so did Victor. Both of them did. I said, `This is a dry shirt.’ If they want to play the next game, they\u2019ll stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBig crowds at the Trop<\/p>\n
After a 2025 season spent playing across the bay in Tampa, Florida, at the Yankees’ spring training home, Steinbrenner Field, while Tropicana Field was repaired following damage caused by Hurricane Milton, the Rays returned this year to the Trop in St. Petersburg and drew 1.4 million fans. <\/p>\n
After drawing a regular season-high crowd of 28,055, Tampa Bay removed tarps covering upper-deck seats and saw 40,452 fill the ballpark for Game 1 against the Yankees, their largest home crowd since Game 5 of the 2010 AL Division Series. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven from the intros, before the game, you could tell the turnout for the Rays fans was there, and we could feel that the whole day,\u201d said closer Bryan Baker, who saved all three ALDS games.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay drew 40,226 for Game 2 and expects a similar atmosphere for the ALCS.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLooking ahead<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay was 4-2 this year against the White Sox and 5-1 vs. Cleveland.<\/p>\n
Going into the ALCS, the Rays will have played just three games in two weeks. Cash, however, didn’t fear rust caused by earning the top AL seed and a first-round bye.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe alternative is playing three must-win games or two out of three,\u201d he said in late September. \u201cI\u2019ll take where we\u2019re at.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
\n See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Belting out \u201cTheme from New York, New York\u201d as they locked arms in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[23940,118,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-368406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-ap-sports","tag-associated-press","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}