ST. PETERSBURG -- For seven months, this season felt like a dream come true for the Rays.
Despite being widely projected to finish last in their own division, they spent most of the year with the American League’s best record. They clinched a playoff spot for the first time in three years on their franchise player’s first career walk-off home run. They won the vaunted AL East for the first time in five years by defeating the rival Yankees at their ballpark, swept them to reach the AL Championship Series, then secured their third trip to the World Series on their home turf.
Being back inside Tropicana Field at all, much less in front of sold-out crowds in the World Series only two years after the roof was ripped off by Hurricane Milton, felt surreal. Meanwhile, their new ownership group seemingly secured the franchise’s long-term future in the Tampa Bay area.
After seven months of nearly everything going the Rays’ way, it almost felt like this dream wasn’t too good to be true.
Then, in the final game of the season at Tropicana Field, seven months and two days after Tampa Bay’s season opener in St. Louis, the Brewers jolted the Rays awake.
Ace right-hander Jacob Misiorowski and Milwaukee’s dominant relief corps permitted only four hits, Tampa Bay’s bullpen blinked first, and the Rays’ season ended with a 4-1 loss to the Brewers in Game 5 of the World Series.
“I'm crushed right now, disappointed,” manager Kevin Cash said. “But it's easier to handle because of what we all meant to each other throughout the course of this season, and certainly this last month in October.”
After Richie Palacios grounded out to second base and slammed his helmet as he reached first too late to avoid the final out, Nick Martinez walked in from the bullpen mound and headed into the dugout. Some Rays slowly walked back into the home clubhouse at Tropicana Field. Many others stood along the dugout railing, watching their opponents celebrate on their home turf.
The offseason had arrived -- later than anyone might have expected when this journey began, but too soon for them to appreciate it.
“This is the best group I've ever been around, especially at this level. To make it as far as we did, and to come up short, I mean … failure sucks,” Drew Rasmussen said. “You just don't know how many opportunities you're going to get, especially in this game. So, to be this close, it really hurts.”
Tampa Bay avoided a Fall Classic sweep thanks to an unforgettable win in Game 4, but that was only a brief respite from an unrelenting Milwaukee club that put together the Majors’ best record in the regular season and ended the postseason by celebrating a championship.
“It sucks, right? Because we believed with everything we had that we can win it all,” Martinez said. “Not the result we wanted, but it was a hell of a ride with a very special group of guys. Didn't meet our ultimate goal, but that's a really, really good ballclub.”
This was the Rays’ third trip to the World Series and their third time falling short of their ultimate goal. You can say that 2008 was so unprecedented and 2020 was so unusual and 2026 was so unexpected, and every team was different.
But each season ended the same way.
The quiet handshakes and hugs. The tearful, emotional goodbyes. The inside jokes they get to share one more time. The uncertainty about what’s ahead. And the sadness of not being the last team standing, the one raising a trophy in the infield.
“It's difficult, right? I think one of the hardest parts was, after the game, everybody hugging each other in here,” Junior Caminero said through interpreter Kevin Vera. “When I started going around hugging the guys, I think that was the most difficult part.”
“It's not really what you envision, especially after all the success that I've had this year,” Chandler Simpson added. “There's a lot of pain in coming up short, but we can also be proud of everything that we accomplished.”
The Brewers became the first team to celebrate a championship under The Trop’s tilted white roof, and their victory left the Rays as one of the four franchises to never stand atop the sport after winning the final game of the season, along with the Padres, Mariners and Rockies.
Milwaukee is proof that it doesn’t come easily. The Brewers hadn’t won it all since they debuted as the Seattle Pilots in 1969, and they hadn’t reached the World Series since 1982 before coming out on top against the Rays.
“You don't know how many opportunities you're going to get to win a championship at this level,” Rasmussen said. “And to come so close, and to have the group that we did, it's hard.”
That sentiment only added to the sting inside Tampa Bay’s clubhouse, even as they appreciated everything they did to even put themselves in this position.
“I think back to when we clinched the [trip to the] World Series. In that moment, you feel such joy because of all your hard work, everything that you've gone through -- you finally made it,” Jonathan Aranda said through Vera. “But when we lose, it's kind of the same feeling, but in the opposite way. All your hard work, everything that you put yourself through, you think of it in that moment, obviously, but now with a sense of disappointment because you lost.”
More than an hour after the last out, Aranda -- the longest-tenured player in the organization -- stood in front of his locker still wearing his full jersey, the one with the World Series patch on his left shoulder. The rest of his teammates were in street clothes, and some had already left for the night.
Aranda knew he would take it off at some point, but he wasn’t ready yet.