2020 World Series/Florida Grapefruit League Connections

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The MLB season ends October, but it all begins in March. With every World Series Champion, there’s a link to Spring Training and 2020 is no different. Find out the Rays and Dodgers Florida Grapefruit League Connections to this year’s Fall Classic.

• The Tampa Bay Rays finished the 2020 Florida Spring Training season with 9-8-4 record, playing 21 games between February 22 and March 12. The Rays 2020 Florida Spring Training season came to an end on March 12 with an 8-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies at the Charlotte Sports Complex.
• The Los Angeles Dodgers held their Spring Training in Vero Beach from 1949 to 2008. During those years, the Dodgers appeared in the World Series 12 times. The Dodgers returned to Vero Beach as World Series winners after the 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981 and 1988 seasons.
• For the 2007 and 2008 seasons, the Rays Class A Florida State League team played at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, as the Vero Beach Devil Rays. The team moved to Port Charlotte in 2009, and became the Charlotte Stone Crabs when the Rays moved their Spring Training operations to the Charlotte Sports Complex.
• Of the current members of the 2020 Rays World Series roster, 11 players played at Charlotte County Stadium as members of the Charlotte Stone Crabs. Between 2012 and 2019, Willy Adames (2015), Jose Alvarado (2016), Mike Brosseau (2017), Diego Castillo (2016), Yonnie Chirinos (2016), Josh Fleming (2018) Kevin Kiermaier (2012), Brandon Lowe (2017), Nate Lowe (2018), Shane McLanahan (2019) and Blake Snell (2014, 2015) spent parts of a summer in a Charlotte Stone Crabs uniform.
• Rays Manager Kevin Cash and pitcher Ryan Yarborough are natives of Florida Spring Training cities. Cash hails from Tampa, home of the Cincinnati Reds and New York Yankees while Yarborough grew up in Lakeland, home of the Detroit Tigers.
• The last time the Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Devil Rays played a Florida Spring Training game against one another was Wednesday, March 23, 2005, at Holman Stadium/Dodgertown in Vero Beach. Earlier in the 2005 Spring Training season, the Dodgers visited Progress Energy Park (formerly known as Al Lang Field) in downtown St. Petersburg on Wednesday, March 9.
• Florida Grapefruit League teams have won the last three World Series titles (Houston, 2017; Boston, 2018; Washington, 2019) and seek a fourth in-a-row with the Rays.
  
  World Series Schedule
  Best-of-seven series; Arlington, Texas, all times Eastern
  Oct. 20: Game 1,: Rays at Dodgers — Fox, 8:09 p.m.
  Oct. 21: Game 2, Rays at Dodgers — Fox, 8:08 p.m.
  Oct. 23: Game 3, Dodgers at Rays — Fox, 8:08 p.m.
  Oct. 24: Game 4, Dodgers at Rays — Fox, 8:08 p.m.
  Oct. 25: Game 5, Dodgers at Rays — Fox, 8:08 p.m. (if necessary)
  Oct. 27: Game 6, Rays at Dodgers — Fox 8:08 p.m. (if necessary)
  Oct. 28: Game 7, Rays at Dodgers — Fox, 8:09 p.m. (if necessary)