ST. PETERSBURG -- The Rays have spent the last few weeks looking less like a normal American League East roster and more like a Baltimore reunion tour.
Bryan Baker, who was dealt from the Orioles to Tampa Bay on July 10, 2025, never expected his move to be the first domino. But the Rays have kept adding familiar faces from that same Orioles core, to the point that Baker says the joke in the clubhouse is already out there.
"You notice it," Baker said. "Walking into the clubhouse [Friday afternoon], a couple of the guys were like, ‘Man, we've just got Orioles 2.0 over here right now.’"
That line has some truth to it. Tampa Bay entered Monday night’s series finale against Baltimore with Baker, Cedric Mullins, Tyler Wells and Jorge Mateo all active on the 26-man roster.
Mullins joined on a one-year, $7 million deal this past offseason. Wells was traded to the Rays on Aug.
- Mateo arrived Thursday, four days after being released by the Braves.
The overlap gets even stranger when you line up the names. Tampa Bay now has four members of the Orioles’ 2023 club - Baker, Mullins, Wells and Mateo - which matches Baltimore’s current total from that team: Kyle Bradish, Yennier Cano, Colton Cowser and Gunnar Henderson. And if you want to push the comparison one step further, former Orioles manager Brandon Hyde is now a senior advisor in the Rays’ baseball operations department.
"That is kind of crazy," Mullins said. "I think about that [2023 Orioles] team, I think about, obviously, what could have been.
Obviously, the business side has its place in the game, a strong place in the game. We always have our dreams about being together for as long as possible.
But things happen. It's funny how the stars have aligned to have guys get picked up, including myself, and being down here."
For those players, the connection runs deeper than just a shared uniform. The 2023 Orioles won 101 games, captured their first AL East title since 2014 and reached the postseason for the first time since 2016, even if that run ended with a sweep at the hands of the Rangers in the American League Division Series.
Baltimore got back to October again in 2024 with a 91-71 record and a Wild Card berth, but the 2025 season went sideways at 75-87. This year, the Orioles are again below .500 at 61-63, and that pushed them into seller mode at the Trade Deadline.
Wells was among the players moved out, and he admitted the trade caught him off guard. He spent Deadline day with Trevor Rogers, and both assumed Rogers would be the one to go. Instead, Rogers stayed put and Wells landed in Tampa Bay.
"Baltimore, obviously, is always going to hold a special place in my heart," Wells said. "Been with them through some pretty significant moments through the last six years. To be able to come back and play them [this weekend] is a little weird in that sense, to be on the other side of some of the lifelong friends that I've created over there."
The adjustment to a new clubhouse in the middle of a season is never seamless, and Wells said he had never gone through it before this year. Having so many former Orioles around him in St. Petersburg has made the transition easier.
"It’s a good thing. It makes things comfortable," Mateo said via an interpreter.
"I’ve also played in this division, so I’ve seen a lot of the same faces here. It’s just a comfortable feeling.”
On the field, though, Baltimore has had the upper hand in this reunion. The Orioles won the first three games of the series over the weekend and were going for a sweep Monday night. Even so, the Rays entered the finale at 74-49, the best record in the American League, and still looked positioned for a serious October push.
That’s where the Baltimore connections could matter most. Mullins pointed to the way the 2023 Orioles handled tight games, and he sees Tampa Bay doing the same thing now.
"I'd say winning close games was something that we did really well in '23," Mullins said. "I think we're copying that here, as well.
When you're able to pull out those close games and then have ones where you just kind of dominate, those wins add up. So that's what we're continuing to do."
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