ESPN crew eager to showcase ‘exciting' and ‘fun' Rays on national level

Much of ESPN's national coverage of Major League Baseball often seems to focus on the biggest-market teams and the best-known stars.

Thursday night, for the first time since the 2021 season, the Rays will be featured on the worldwide leader in sports in a regular-season game, taking on the Red Sox at 7:10 p.m.

"It's kind of like the ‘first time, long time' caller on a talk radio station," said lead broadcaster Karl Ravech. "It's the first time, long time for the Rays on a national game for us."

Ravech and analyst Eduardo Perez - a Devil Ray during the 2004-05 season - are eager for the opportunity to showcase one of the game's hottest, and most interesting, teams.

"Tampa Bay is a fun team," Perez said. "I love how they play. It's a different way that they win ballgames."

Ravech raved how the Rays play "an exciting brand of baseball."

He added: "If you're going to broadcast a game, you want a team that puts the ball in play, there's action on the bases, they catch the baseball and they pitch the baseball.

"And the Rays check every one of those boxes."

Both said they are planning to tell the stories of key Rays players who may not be familiar to the national audience.

"People already saw a glimpse of (All-Star third baseman) Junior Caminero during the (World Baseball Classic)," Perez said. "They saw highlights of him from winter ball (in 2025) when it took him like five minutes, maybe six minutes, to run the bases during that home run celebration.

"But this is his ESPN debut. This is Chandler Simpson's ESPN debut as well. This is Jonathan Aranda's ESPN debut. These are guys that can hit. These are guys that can play.

"And with Yandy Diaz, we're probably going to showcase the biggest biceps in the game as well."

Ravech was going over rankings of the game's top players and cited several examples where a Rays player is listed among the game's superstars, such as Diaz on several top hitter lists, like the leaders in OPS+ over 2022-25.

He knows casual fans may be surprised to hear Diaz mentioned with Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers, Freddie Freeman, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Jose Ramirez and Juan Soto.

"Are you saying to yourself, should Yandy Diaz be on that list? And he happens to be in the middle of it," Ravech said. "I think it's somewhat inherent to being a Ray. You get overshadowed, you get overlooked, you tend to be ignored. And yet they continue to win, because they're on a lot of these lists that the superstars are on, and they don't get the attention.

"They will get a ton of attention Thursday night. You will see the lists with the Rays players on it. And it would probably lead you to not wonder so much why do they have one of the best records in baseball."

Ravech said he is most surprised with the incredible run of pitching - despite injuries to several key hurlers - the Rays have been on, Wednesday posting their 13th straight game of allowing three or fewer runs, matching the second-longest such streak in the wild-card era (since 1995).

But he also sees that as an opportunity to discuss the Rays' rich history and long track record of acquiring pitchers and making them better, such as Steven Matz (currently injured) and Nick Martinez this year.

"It's like people who would go to different parts of the world to get a procedure done they couldn't otherwise get in the United States," Ravech said. "When you go to Tampa Bay, you're going for a pitching transformation - I'm getting a tune-up on my pitching skills, and it generally works. There is that feeling of I'm going to check into the Tampa Bay Rays pitching hotel, and when I come out, I'm a new man, I've got a new way of doing things, and it works."

Perez and Ravech also give credit to baseball operations president Erik Neander and manager Kevin Cash for their steady hands in leading the squad.

"That whole formula of consistency and stability leads to those of us on the national side having the same conversation every year," Ravech said. "It's like, you kind of don't talk much about the Rays, and then you realize you probably should talk about the Rays. They're always seemingly consistently competitive, and that's a hard thing to do."

• • •

Sign up for our Sports Today newsletter to get daily updates on the Bucs, Rays, Lightning and college football across Florida.

Every weekday, tune into our Sports Day Tampa Bay podcast to hear reporter Rick Stroud break down the biggest stories in Tampa Bay sports.

Never miss out on the latest with your favorite Tampa Bay sports teams. Follow our coverage on X and Facebook.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published May 7, 2026 at 7:17 AM.