Wherever we face them, whatever their plight, Tampa will be playing on pure anti-Yankee spite

No team hates us like the Rays. Nobody. Yeah, the Redsocks are our "traditional rivals," but that's all marketing: They need us, like the Joker needs Batman, like peanut butter needs jelly. If not for us, they're Boston College playing West Virginia. Talk to a nutjob Redsock fan, and he'll tell you the Yankee pitching staff down to Caleb Smith, which many Yankee fans can't do. I've seen these poor Redsock people. They are closet Yankee fans, pinstriped trannies, all torn up inside due to their denial. They are living a lie. They simply hear people booing Aaron Judge, and they boo along with the mob. Sad.

Tampa fans are a different critter. The city fathers want them to be whipped into a froth by the mere image of the Yankees, but they just don't care. They're more inclined to root for the NFL Bucs or, better, watch reruns of Cougar Town. The Tampa Ray ownership desperately wants the city to hate the Yankees, because - kaching - it would fannies in seats and, besides, the Yankees have set up shop in Tampa, behind enemy lines. Their games are on Tampa radio, and they directly challenge old fashioned Tampa civic pride. 

Thus, when they hear the word "Yankees," Tampa Ray Ray players are programmed to explode with a blistering, coronal mass ejaculation of pure hatred. The Rays are always young and naive: Tampa trades them, as soon as they start earning money. This is their first taste of the Major Leagues. They'll not just climb a wall to steal a Yankee homer, they'll run through it. When the Yankees arrive, Eva Longoria becomes Evan Longoria. The Rays go nuts. They want to beat the Yankees because it's the last time in their professional lives that some fake home town spirit will motivate them. 

This week, we play Tampa at Citi Field, theoretically a Yankee home crowd. It won't matter. We should be very afraid of the Rays. They may be almost out of it, but they will be spiteful.

There will be fans rooting for them out of sympathy - (and who doesn't feel it? what's happening is a catastrophe; dear god, I have lifetime friends hunkered down, trying to ride it out in Punta Gorda!) - but nothing will more delight the Rays than knocking out the Yankees. 

Beware this series, folks. They're going to come at us with pitchforks.