The Best Tampa Bay Rays Seasons and Every October Run

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 10 min read

The Tampa Bay Rays' best seasons by record and all 16 postseason series from 2008 to 2023, including two pennants, two World Series losses and a run of first-round exits that fans still argue about.

The Tampa Bay franchise has played 28 seasons in the historical record (1998 through 2025) and owns a record of 2,168 wins and 2,264 losses, a winning percentage of .489. It has won two American League pennants, in 2008 and 2020, and four division titles. It has never won a World Series. Between those facts sits a franchise that lost 100 or more games in three of its first nine seasons and then reached October nine times in 16 years.

This article goes through the club's best regular seasons by winning percentage and then through every one of its postseason series: nine trips to October, 16 series, seven won and nine lost. The record is unusual. The Rays have reached the World Series twice and lost both times, and their two best regular seasons, 100 wins in 2021 and 99 in 2023, ended with a division-series loss and a two-game wild-card loss.

The numbers below come from the historical record through the 2025 season. Where the article describes something the database cannot hold, such as a famous play or the reason a team improved, it keeps to well-documented facts and does not narrate games from memory.

The six best seasons by winning percentage

The best regular season in club history is recent. The 2021 team won 100 games, the only 100-win season the franchise has had, and the 2023 team came within one game of it. The 2008 and 2010 teams fill the next two places.

Not one of these six seasons ended with a championship, and only the 2008 team reached the World Series. The 2020 pennant winner is missing from the list because it played a 60-game season shortened by the pandemic, which is not comparable to a full year.

Compare that with the other end. The five worst seasons are 55-106 in 2002, 61-101 in 2006, 62-100 in 2001, 63-99 in 2003 and 63-99 in 1998, the club's first year. All five come from the first nine seasons. The franchise's swing from the floor to the ceiling was fast, and the sections below follow it in order.

1998 to 2007: the Devil Rays years

The club entered the American League in 1998 as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and kept that name through 2007. It played at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, where the best attendance in the park's history, 2,506,293, came in the very first season. That is a fact worth sitting with. The club never drew that many people in its home park again, even when it won.

The first decade produced no winning season. The managers of the era read like a revolving door: Larry Rothschild went 203-293 across 496 games from 1998 to 2001; Hal McRae was 113-196 in 309 games in 2001 and 2002; and Lou Piniella went 200-285 in 485 games from 2003 to 2005. Roberto Hernandez, who saved 101 games for the club between 1998 and 2000, is still the franchise leader in that category. Fred McGriff, who is in the Hall of Fame, spent five seasons with the club and drew 305 walks in a Tampa Bay uniform.

Several future stars arrived during these years without leaving a mark on the standings. Carl Crawford began in 2002 and went on to lead the franchise in hits and stolen bases. Aubrey Huff hit 128 home runs from 2000 through 2006. B. J. Upton and Scott Kazmir came up in the middle of the decade. None of the teams that employed them finished above .500, which is the clearest way to see why the database's worst seasons cluster here.

2008: the Rays, the pennant and the first October

The change was sudden. In 2008 the club dropped the Devil from its name, became the Tampa Bay Rays and went 97-65, winning the division for the first time. Joe Maddon, who had been hired in 2006, managed the team, and his record with the club over nine seasons was 754-705 across 1,459 games. Evan Longoria, a rookie that year, won the Rookie of the Year award.

The postseason run was the most dramatic in club history. The Rays beat the White Sox in the division series, 3 games to 1. They then met the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series, and that series went seven games. Boston led three games to one, a position from which almost no team recovers, and the Rays won the last three to take the series 4-3. The comeback is the reason the 2008 team is remembered as more than a surprise winner.

The World Series was less kind. The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Rays four games to one. That result stands as the first of two World Series defeats, and it is easy to forget how much of the club's later story it set up: a team had arrived, and the rest of the league now had to account for it. For the American League East context, the Boston Red Sox history and the New York Yankees history describe the two clubs the Rays had to pass.

2010 to 2013: three first-round exits

The next four years brought three more postseason berths and three losses in the division series. In 2010 the Rays went 96-66, won the division and lost to the Texas Rangers, 2 games to 3. A year later they returned as a wild card and lost to Texas again, this time 1 game to 3. In 2013 they went 92-71, qualified as a wild card, beat Cleveland in a single wild-card game (1-0 in the series) and lost the division series to Boston, 1 game to 3.

The pitching staff during this stretch is arguably the best the franchise has produced. David Price, who won the American League Cy Young Award in 2012, ranks first in club history in earned run average (3.18, among pitchers with at least 1,000 innings) and second in wins with 82. James Shields leads the club in wins (87) and in strikeouts (1,250). Jeremy Hellickson won the Rookie of the Year Award in 2011, and Wil Myers won it in 2013. Rafael Soriano saved 45 games in 2010, his only season with the club.

There is an easy argument that these teams deserved more. The 2010 and 2011 clubs lost to the same Texas team, and neither loss went past the fifth game. The explanation lies partly in the format. The American League Division Series is a best-of-five, which compresses the advantage of the better team into five coin flips weighted slightly in its favor. The Rays were good enough to reach those coin flips four times in five years and not good enough to win more than one. Their record in the division series, across all appearances, is two wins and five losses.

2014 to 2018: five seasons without October

After 2014, Maddon left and Kevin Cash took over for 2015. The Rays did not reach the postseason again until 2019, which is five seasons without October baseball. Cash has since become the longest-serving manager in club history, with a 896-783 record across 1,679 games from 2015 through 2025.

The stretch was not empty. Blake Snell won the Cy Young Award in 2018, a season in which the club did not make the playoffs. Chris Archer, who ranks second in club history in strikeouts with 1,167, pitched for the club from 2012 to 2021. Kevin Kiermaier, with 756 hits and 112 stolen bases from 2013 to 2022, was part of the core. But the club did not reach the postseason again until 2019.

Evan Longoria, whose 261 home runs and 892 runs batted in lead the franchise by a wide margin, played his last Rays season in 2017. The next-best home run total belongs to Carlos Pena at 163, which shows how far ahead of the field Longoria stood.

2019 to 2023: five more trips, one more pennant

The most productive stretch in franchise history began in 2019. The Rays went 96-66, qualified as a wild card and beat Oakland in the wild-card game (1-0 in the series). They then lost the division series to Houston, 2 games to 3.

The 2020 team is the one that earned the second pennant. That season was cut to 60 games by the pandemic, and the Rays won the American League East. They beat Toronto in the first round, 2 games to 0, and the Yankees in the division series, 3 games to 2. In the ALCS against Houston the Rays trailed three games to none and won the last four. Both of the club's pennants, in other words, came by a 4-3 series margin. The World Series was played at a single neutral site in Texas, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Rays four games to two. Randy Arozarena, who hit ten home runs in that postseason, a single-postseason record, won the Rookie of the Year Award a year later.

The 2021 team then won 100 games, the best record in the American League, and lost the division series to Boston in four games (1-3). The 2022 team lost the wild-card series to Cleveland, 0 games to 2. The 2023 team won 99 games, finished second in the division, and lost the wild-card series to Texas, again 0 games to 2. That makes three straight postseasons that ended in the first round or the division series, after the 2020 high.

2024 and 2025: the club without a home

The most unusual entry in the record is the most recent one. Tropicana Field, the club's home from 1998 through 2024, lost its roof to Hurricane Milton in October 2024. In 2025 the club played its home games at George M. Steinbrenner Field, the spring-training home of the New York Yankees in Tampa, where the season's attendance was 786,750.

The database holds the one-year attendance figure but not the reasons behind any season's results, and it carries no postseason series for the club after 2023. Readers who want to know where the club plays in a given year should check the Rays team page and the Tropicana Field page rather than rely on a historical article. For the park itself, see the Tropicana Field guide.

Every Rays postseason series, in order

The table lists each series, the result and the games won and lost by Tampa Bay. The wins are in bold.

Sort the table by round and the shape of the record appears. In the division series the Rays are 2-5, and the two wins came in 2008 and 2020. In the wild-card round, a round that has existed in some form since 2012, they are 3-2. In the American League Championship Series they are 2-0, and both of those series went seven games. In the World Series they are 0-2.

The pattern is a team that is excellent at getting in and has had trouble winning the short best-of-five. The five division-series losses came against Texas twice, Boston twice and Houston once. That is a small sample, and a best-of-five series can turn on a single game, so the table supports no stronger conclusion than that the Rays have been good enough to reach October often and have not yet converted a 100-win season into a title.

Where the numbers stand

Several career leaders explain the shape of those teams. Longoria leads in home runs, runs batted in, runs scored and walks. Crawford leads in hits with 1,480 and in stolen bases with 409, and his .296 average is the best among regulars with 3,000 or more at-bats. Ben Zobrist, who ranks third in hits and in runs batted in, played from 2006 to 2014. Yandy Diaz, with 99 home runs and 882 hits through 2025, ranks second in club batting average at .291. Brandon Lowe's 157 home runs in 2018 through 2025 rank third behind Longoria and Pena.

On the pitching side, Shields, Price and Archer lead the club in wins or strikeouts. The save leaders are Hernandez with 101, Alex Colome with 95 and Pete Fairbanks with 90 through 2025, followed by Fernando Rodney at 85. No Rays pitcher has reached 100 wins, and Shields at 87 is the closest.

Common questions

Have the Rays ever won the World Series? No. They have reached it twice, in 2008 and 2020, and lost to the Phillies (4 games to 1) and the Dodgers (4 games to 2).

What was the club called before 2008? The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The database lists that name for the ten seasons from 1998 through 2007, and the Tampa Bay Rays for 2008 through 2025.

Who has managed the most games? Kevin Cash, with 1,679 games and a 896-783 record from 2015 through 2025, followed by Joe Maddon with 1,459 games and a 754-705 record from 2006 to 2014.

How many playoff seasons have the Rays had? Nine: 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. That is nine appearances in 28 seasons.

Which team has beaten them most often in October? Texas, three times, in 2010, 2011 and 2023. Boston beat them in 2013 and 2021, and Houston in 2019, though the Rays beat Houston in the 2020 ALCS.

Where to go next

For the full chronology of the franchise, from the first season to today, read the Tampa Bay Rays franchise history, and for the players behind the records, the all-time greats article. The division rivals the Rays have had to beat are covered in the Baltimore Orioles history, and the format that decides the October rounds is in the history of the World Series. The latest news is collected on the Rays topic page.