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MLB Baseball Betting Odds: The Tampa Bay Rays entered Major League Baseball as an expansion team in 1998. The franchise is located in St. Petersburg, Fla. Some are confused by the name “Tampa Bay” as it isn’t a geographic location but instead a body of water, and refers to the collective metropolitan cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Bradenton.

The Rays have played home games at Tropicana Field since their inception. And since then, they have perennially had one of the lowest attendance marks in the big leagues. Tampa Bay ownership uses the low attendance as an excuse to not boost the team payroll and acquire big-name free agents.

The Rays play in the stacked American League East Division and have avoided finishing in last place only four times in franchise history. Prior to 2008, Tampa Bay had never won more than 70 games and never finished within 21 games of a .500 record.

Early lineups were filled with has-been stars such as Wade Boggs, Fred McGriff, Wilson Alvarez, Vinny Castilla, Jose Canseco and Greg Vaughn. Boggs did record his 3,000th hit as a member of the Rays, but that was the only bright spot during the team’s infant years.

The team did draft future star Bobby Abreu but dealt him to the Phillies for a scrub in Kevin Stocker. It also took Josh Hamilton with the No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 MLB Draft but drug and alcohol problems prevented him from playing in The Show for the next eight years.

But things began to change prior to the 2008 campaign. Tampa Bay always held the nickname of the Devil Rays but discarded the "Devil" moniker before the season started and the alteration produced heavenly results.

Elite young talent like Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford, James Shields, Matt Garza, Jason Bartlett, Scott Kazmir, B.J. Upton and David Price propelled the Rays to their first winning season. They not only finished 32 games over .500, but also won the East over the powerful Yankees and Red Sox.

With the best home record in baseball, Tampa disposed of the Chicago White Sox in four games during the ’08 ALDS. After winning their first postseason series, the Rays advanced to their first ALCS matchup where they defeated Boston in seven games.

The Rays had home-field advantage in the 2008 World Series but ran into the red-hot Phillies, and were ousted in five games. But heading into the next season there wasn’t anyone underestimating Tampa Bay. This was no longer a Cinderella story but instead a bona fide squad ready to compete for years.

The Rays returned to the postseason in 2010 but lost to the eventual pennant winner Texas Rangers in an ALDS five-game series.

Despite losing players like Crawford and Garza in 2011, manager Joe Maddon still has a plethora of talent in his everyday lineup. But the Rays will need to boost attendance, and payroll, to keep up with their free-spending East counterparts.

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