Joe Maddon will be back where so much of his Tampa Bay story was written on Monday night.
Before Game 3 of the 2026 World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers at Tropicana Field, Maddon is set to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. For Rays fans, it’s a familiar face returning to the ballpark from a very different era - the man who guided one of baseball’s most dramatic turnarounds.
The last World Series game played at Tropicana Field came in 2008, when Maddon was in the Rays dugout and Tampa Bay beat the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2. That season marked the franchise’s first postseason trip after its worst-to-first rise, capped by a 97-65 finish. The Rays ultimately lost the World Series, but they still finished as American League champions and took the AL East, a notable breakthrough for a club that had just reached a new level.
Maddon’s run in Tampa Bay didn’t end there. He led the Rays back to the postseason in 2010, when they won the division, and again in 2011 and 2013.
Each time, the team fell in the Division Series. Even so, Maddon was recognized as AL Manager of the Year in both 2008 and 2011.
After the 2014 season, he moved on to the Chicago Cubs and later delivered the title that ended a 108-year championship drought in 2016. Following the 2019 season, Maddon departed Chicago and took over the Los Angeles Angels, but the results never matched his earlier success. The club struggled below .500 during his tenure, and Maddon was dismissed in June 2022 after a 27-29 start.
Maddon spent nine seasons as Rays manager, the longest stretch of his career. He finished with a 754-705 record in Tampa Bay, reaching the postseason four times and winning one pennant.
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Taylor Walls Delivered A Defiant Rays Message After That Walk-Off Win
After the Rays pulled out a walk-off win over the Brewers in the World Series, the postgame conversation quickly shifted from the final swing to the bigger picture. MLB insider Ken Rosenthal asked shortstop Taylor Walls whether getting just one victory was meaningful because it showed Tampa Bay could hang with Milwaukee, a line of questioning that underscored how much respect the Brewers have earned in the matchup.
Walls did not love the premise, making it clear he thought the question missed the point of how the Rays view themselves. Tampa Bay has no interest in treating one win like proof of parity, because the belief inside the room is that the series is still there to be won, and the group is determined to keep competing against a Milwaukee club it still recognizes as a formidable opponent. [Read more 🡒]
Rays World Series Exit Leaves One Brutal Question About Their Big 3
The Rays run to the 2026 World Series ended with a familiar kind of frustration, the kind that lingers because Tampa Bay was never far from a breakthrough, yet never quite got the big hit to flip the series. Milwaukee closed things out with a 4-1 win in Game 5, and the Rays spent much of the matchup chasing the Brewers pace after Drew Rasmussen took the ball on short rest against a lineup that kept forcing them into uncomfortable swings.
What makes the exit sting even more is how little production Tampa Bay got from the middle of its order. Yandy Diaz, Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero never found their groove over the series, and the Rays now head into the offseason with one brutal question hanging over the clubs future: when the pressure was highest, where did the offense from its core go? [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Let World Series Chance Slip Away At Worst Possible Time
The Rays were staring at the brink again in Game 5, but instead of heading to the offseason, they kept their season alive with one of those late, stubborn October rallies that can change the tone of an entire series. Tampa Bay chipped away at Milwaukees lead, then turned the game into a marathon and came away with a 12th-inning win that sent the World Series back for Game 6.
For a Brewers club that had the championship within reach, the collapse in the late innings was especially painful because the margin for error had already vanished. The Rays now have a chance to do something no World Series team has ever done, forcing a Game 6 after trailing 3-0 in the series, and Milwaukee will have to recover quickly from a loss that let the door swing back open at exactly the wrong moment. [Read more 🡒]