Rays' opener moved back a day, giving more time to prepare temporary Steinbrenner Field home

DALLAS (AP) — The Rays' opener against the Colorado Rockies was pushed back a day until March 28 to give Tampa Bay an extra day to adapt the New York Yankees' Steinbrenner Field.

Tampa Bay is playing home games at the Yankees' spring training facility in Tampa, Florida, this year because of damage to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg by Hurricane Milton on Oct. 9.

“I know that the Rays and MLB will do everything in their power to make it feel as though it’s a major league — it will be a major league game,” Rockies manager Bud Black said Monday. “Just from what I’ve seen visually through TV, it’s a nice ballpark. Like I said, as far as the clubhouses, how it’s run, all the things outside of the game itself, they’re going to be up to major league specifications.”

The Yankees' last spring training home game is against the Rays on March 23.

The Yankees said Sunday the Rays “will have limited permission to sell regular-season advertising inventory throughout the seating bowl, including stadium concourse walls, the scoreboard (both signage and videoboard spots) and the outfield walls.”

Rays staff will operate the scoreboard and employ Tampa Bay elements. The statue of late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner will remain in place outside the stadium but decisions have not been made on the large Y-A-N-K-E-E-S signs on each side of the stadium and the Yankees mural on the back of the scoreboard.

Tampa Bay is scheduled to play 19 of its first 22 games at home and 37 of 54 through May 28, then play 64 of its last 108 games on the road in an attempt to avoid summer rain at the open-air ballpark.

“For us it’s going to be three games. For Tampa it’s going to be 81,” Black saod. “So they’re the ones who I think have to work the adjustment. It will be a nice little diversion from the Trop.”

The site of any Rays postseason games would be decided jointly by the Rays, Yankees and Major League Baseball, the Yankees said.

Tampa Bay will use the Yankees' clubhouse on the first base side, which was renovated during the 2023-24 offseason. New York will use the visitor's clubhouse for its regular-season games at Steinbrenner Field.

A building containing a visitor's batting cage and weight room was previously built on the third base side, and additional team dining facilities and a new weight room are under construction on the first base side.

Yankees personnel will not have access during the regular season to their pitching facility near back field 3 and rehab players will be limited to the minor league facility on the other side of Dale Mabry Blvd. The Rays will not have access to the Yankees' pitching facility.

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The Associated Press