MLB Notebook: Say goodbye to The Trop, the Rays have plans for a $1.2 billion stadium in St. Petersburg

Quiet down the relocation rumours for now. The Tampa Bay Rays look to be staying in Florida, revealing their concepts and plans for a new stadium on Monday.

It’s definitely a better sight than Tropicana Field and further solidifies the Rays’ presence in the Tampa Bay area. Sure, it might be in St. Petersburg, but it represents a far more permanent solution than the catwalk-ridden indoor mess that is their current home. And, it finally feels that this team’s excellence on the field is being translated off as well. Rays fans can finally have some more certainty about their team’s future.

For the people hoping for professional baseball’s return in Montreal, however, this news was a blow to the slim hopes. It wasn’t long ago that the Tampa Bay Rays suggested a plan to split time between Florida and Montreal, with the new stadium still in limbo. Now, that plan itself was riddled with logistical challenges and was probably more there as a bargaining chip, but the 2022 plan was just the latest in a series of rumours surrounding the Rays and Montreal. Now, it seems that the city with the oldest baseball history in Canada will have to go without a pro ball club for the foreseeable future, with Montreal looking unlikely to be a relocation destination.

Still, one has to wonder if Montreal is now up on the expansion team list. Their storied history tells of a city that can clearly support baseball, so if given a proper shot and a purpose-built ballpark, perhaps the second go-around of the Expos will be longer-lasting than the first.

Most were probably wondering if the longtime Cardinals hurler had made a mistake, that he should’ve retired alongside Yadier Molina after St. Louis stumbled out of the gates this season. But, Adam Wainwright chugged along, as the reliable pitcher finally recorded his 200th MLB win.

He was excellent last night against the Brewers, blanking them through 7 innings while only giving up 4 hits and 2 walks. Wainwright joins Verlander, Scherzer, Greinke, and Kershaw as the only active pitchers to reach the 200-win mark while becoming only the 3rd pitcher in Cards history to achieve that feat. Not bad at all, considering that Wainwright isn’t exactly a strikeout pitcher these days.

After some tense moments in the wild card race for Toronto Blue Jays fans these past few days, they can take a sigh of relief as the out-of-town scoreboard comes up in their favour once more. The Jays sit in the wild card spot currently as the AL West continues to trip over themselves and hand Toronto games. In fact, the Houston Astros, Texas Rangers, and Seattle Mariners have combined to go 20-30 in the month of September thus far.

What makes this even more interesting is looking at the last few series for these AL West teams, who all clash with each other to wrap up the regular season. At the end of August, it looked like these series would be barn-burning games to try and decide who would come up with the division title and the wild card spot. But now, it seems that it’ll be a war of attrition – whichever team sucks the least, will be the victor of their battles.

You’re counting your lucky stars if you’re a Jays fan right now. But their schedule doesn’t clear up – Toronto finishes up the season against the Yankees, Rays, Yankees again, and the Rays again. It’ll be interesting to see where they’ll end up in the Wild Card race, assuming that they’ll stay in the postseason picture.