The Tampa Bay Rays will be featured in prime time for their first two games of the American League Division Series.
Major League Baseball has released the television schedule for the Wild Card games and Division Series rounds for all necessary games, and the American League East champions will get an opportunity to be in the marquee time slot.
The Rays and the American League Wild Card winner — either the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees — will begin their best-of-five series Thursday evening at Tropicana Field, with first pitch at 8:07. Game two will be the following evening, with first pitch an hour earlier at 7:07. Both games wil air on FS1.
Tampa Bay’s first road game of the series will take place Sunday afternoon, with first pitch at 4:07, and will air on MLB Network.
Start times for games 4 and 5 will be determined as necessary.
Steve Carney is the founder and publisher of St. Pete Nine. One of the people most associated with baseball coverage in Tampa Bay, he spent 13 seasons covering the Rays for flagship radio station WDAE, first as producer of Rays Radio broadcasts, then as beat reporter beginning in 2011. He likes new analytics and aged bourbon, and is the owner of one of the ugliest knuckleballs ever witnessed by baseball scouts.
