ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The Tampa Bay Rays led the American League in wins and are heading to the World Series with a non-traditional lineup that features a couple All-Stars and mostly unsung heroes who do whatever it takes to win games.
They make contact, bunt, steal bases but also can hit for power. The Rays finished second to the NL champion Brewers in batting average at .2581 to Milwaukee’s .2585.
Game 1 of the World Series is Friday night in Milwaukee.
The Rays led the majors with 134 bunts during the regular season, had the fewest strikeouts and were 22nd in homers, playing their brand of small-ball mixed in with some long ball provided mostly by Junior Caminero, Yandy Díaz and Jonathan Aranda.
Speedy left fielder Chandler Simpson is one of the offensive catalysts. He led the team with a .306 batting average and 46 steals. Simpson has no homers in 1,053 career plate appearances in the majors and is a prototypical, old-school leadoff hitter. Not in Kevin Cash’s unorthodox lineup, however. Simpson batted fifth (57) more times than first (37) and was in the No. 3 spot in Game 4 of the AL Championship Series against Cleveland.
“I feel like there’s a lot that goes into it, especially hitting the middle order with dudes that can hit for power in front of you and dudes that can do the same behind you, or run as well,” Simpson said. “Just move defenses around and cause havoc when people are on base or off base. I feel it’s effective when there’s traffic on the base paths or nobody on to start an inning or keep an inning going. Just being able to be contact-reliant and make sure to put the ball in play, moving the ball forward, and try my best to get on base any way I can.”
In an era of baseball where launch angle and exit velocity are emphasized, home runs are prioritized and striking out has become far too acceptable, Simpson plays a different style. He has more success hitting the ball on the ground, doesn’t strike out much (48) and impacts games by getting on base however he can. He had 14 bunt hits.
“It’s fun to play my game,” Simpson said. “There’s a space and there’s a spot for power in our game for sure, but there’s definitely a space for contact, getting on base, playing good defense, running, base running, doing all those things that can win games as well that can complement power to a certain extent.
“So I feel like it’s fun, and I feel like there’s definitely a complementary factor that helps winning ball games. I feel like it can’t just be all power. But it all can’t just be me as well. I feel like it has to work together to pull it out at the end of the day.”
For power, the Rays have Caminero, Díaz and Aranda.
Caminero, a two-time All-Star third baseman, is the anchor of the lineup and usually bats in the third spot or cleanup. He hit .276 with 42 homers, 101 RBIs and had an .885 OPS.
Díaz, the veteran designated hitter, hit .293 with 22 homers, 85 RBIs and led the league with 180 hits while making his second All-Star team. The hulking Díaz – he may have the biggest biceps in the majors — hit two-run homers in 7-3 victories in Games 4 and 6 against the Guardians. Yet, he was the team’s leadoff hitter for 120 games in the regular season and throughout the postseason. Díaz also batted fourth (34) more times than anyone else on the team.
Aranda, an All-Star in 2025, hit .274 with 22 homers, 92 RBIs and a .358 OBP. He’s usually in the two-hole in the lineup.
They’re the fixtures.
Ryan Vilade and Victor Mesa Jr. platoon in right field. Jonny DeLuca and Cedric Mullins shared center field in the regular season with DeLuca starting all six games in the ALCS.
Vilade bounced around with five organizations before the Rays acquired him last November. He had one homer in 64 at-bats but made the most of his opportunity to play in Tampa Bay. The right-handed hitting Vilade hit .245 with 11 homers and 43 RBIs in 245 at-bats.
He went deep off Max Fried at Yankee Stadium in Game 3 of the AL Division Series, helping the Rays sweep New York.
“Just being able to look back and like last year, I was in (Triple-A) Memphis and sleeping on an Amazon or a Walmart bed, and this year I’m here and get to go to the ALCS and compete with my guys,” Vilade said. “That’s just the Lord’s plan, and I’m grateful for it.”
Mesa was designated for assignment by Miami in February so the Rays made a trade to get him. The rookie batted .260 with 14 homers and 34 RBIs in only 235 at-bats. He bats throughout the lineup, including cleanup behind Caminero sometimes. Mesa hit a go-ahead, tiebreaking two-run homer off Fried in the ALDS clincher.
“When I first started with the Rays, I wasn’t hitting anything,” Mesa said through an interpreter. “I wasn’t getting any single base hits. I wasn’t getting on base at all. Things started to warm up for me.”
DeLuca (.266, 11, 50) played all over the outfield in the regular season but has taken over center in the postseason from Mullins (.205, 15, 48) .
Shortstop Taylor Walls batted .222 but he’s a slick fielder who finished third in the majors with 21 defensive runs saved. Second baseman Richie Palacios hit .235 with 10 homers and 57 RBIs in 345 at-bats. He had a big hit in the ALCS clincher, a two-run double that opened the scoring.
Catcher Liam Hicks, who was acquired at the trade deadline, has been an important addition to Tampa Bay’s lineup. He hit .288 with four homers and 20 RBIs in 41 games, batting mostly in the cleanup spot.
“We’re a bunch of dogs,” Vilade said. “We are going to go out there. We don’t care who’s on the other side. We’re going to go out and compete and do our thing and be ourselves and not try to do too much and play for one another. And I think that’s what makes us special.”
Four more wins makes them champions – the first in the 29-year history of the Rays.
See AP’s full MLB coverage here
Tampa Bay Rays' Jonny DeLuca hits a RBI single against the Cleveland Guardians during the first inning in Game 1 of an American League Championship Series baseball game in St. Petersburg, Fla. Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Tampa Bay Rays' Chandler Simpson celebrates a double against the Cleveland Guardians during the third inning in Game 5 of an American League Championship Series baseball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — After Ashley Hinson dropped off her boys at school earlier this month, she saw the initials “DJT” flash on her phone.
“'Ashley, it's your favorite president,'” Iowa's Republican nominee for U.S. Senate recently recounted to an audience of her supporters. “That's how he introduced himself.”
She had had a more forceful message about communicating with President Donald Trump on the debate stage with her Democratic opponent, Josh Turek, as she tried to win over undecided voters.
“I’ll be President Trump’s ally when it is important for Iowa, but I will push back on him,” promised Hinson, who currently serves in the U.S. House. “He knows this.”
Although many Republicans are walking a political tightrope in this year's midterm elections, Hinson's balancing act is more challenging than most. Iowans have been hamstrung by manufacturing job losses, health care clinic closures and shrunken farm profits since Trump returned to the White House, but Hinson also is relying on the president's loyalists to show up for her.
On Thursday, Hinson took the stage before Trump came on, at a rally in Sioux City, which is in Iowa's conservative northwest corner. The visit to safe territory is geared toward boosting turnout even as it ties her more tightly to an unpopular president.
To hundreds of Trump's supporters, Hinson played up her relationship with the president.
“I’m not sure, frankly, that he’s always happy when we’re talking because I ask him for a lot of things for Iowa when we’re on the phone,” she said. “And that’s exactly what you would expect me to do, right? As your next United States senator.”
Trump is expected to visit the state again Nov. 1. He is “anxious for Iowans to hear his message before they vote,” Iowa Republican Party Chair Jeff Kaufmann said in announcing the president's schedule.
Turek, a state lawmaker, was in Sioux City for a campaign event Tuesday and told reporters he was happy for Trump to visit to see how his tariffs and the Iran war have “hurt Iowa more than any other state.” Although Turek says he's willing to work with Trump on issues like immigration, he called Hinson a rubber stamp for the president's bad policies.
When Hinson kicked off her campaign last year, she touted Trump’s endorsement and said she was running to be Trump’s “top ally” in the Senate. Almost a year later, Hinson instead says she wants to be “Iowa’s best bipartisan fighter."
The message has crystallized since the summer, with more examples of Hinson vocalizing positions at odds with the president. Recent polling from late September and early October suggests it could work as she carves out about 1 in 10 voters who disapprove of the president even as she continues to secure overwhelming support from those who approve of Trump.
In August, she said Trump’s plan to increase beef imports from foreign countries in an attempt to lower prices was "a bad idea” that would hurt Iowa farmers.
Last month, two of Hinson's Iowa colleagues in the House broke with the White House and voted against Trump's ability to continue the war with Iran without congressional approval.
Hinson didn’t, but she said later the war has gotten too costly for Americans and called for Trump to bring the conflict to a “successful and immediate end.”
More recently, Hinson criticized Trump’s decision to ease sanctions on Russia in exchange for diesel fuel. She said Tuesday that the U.S. needs to make sure “dictators aren’t allowed to win wars.”
“I think the president and I share the goal of lowering costs for working families and for people who are using diesel,” she told reporters after a campaign event. “I, again, just don’t think we need to be making any deals with Russia.”
Hinson said she hadn’t talked with the president about the issue.
“Maybe I’ll have a chance to come have a conversation with him at the rally," she added.
Hinson isn't the only one pitching bipartisanship. So is Turek. In fact, he's the only Iowa candidate seeking federal office who explicitly mentions Trump in general election television advertisements, according to an Associated Press analysis of AdImpact data.
In one, Turek is behind the wheel speaking directly to a camera about Interstate 35, which “connects Iowa to the southern border and the broken immigration system that both parties have failed to fix." He says: “In the U.S. Senate, I’ll work with anyone to fix it, including President Trump, to secure the border, stop the flow of drugs into Iowa.”
Turek has pushed back on the president’s policies, including tariffs and the war in Iran, as the catalysts of high costs that are hurting Iowans, but his message on working with the president on immigration and other select issues stands out from other Democrats. Republicans say he's just pretending to be a moderate to get elected.
Mazie Stilwell, executive director of the progressive organization Progress Iowa, said Turek's message on immigration targets a bloc of voters on an issue that's particularly important to them but doesn't overshadow his otherwise disciplined focus on the high costs facing Iowans.
Trump’s visit to the state Thursday, she added, is “a terrific reminder of the disaster that he has been and his administration has been for our bottom line, for everyday Iowans who are trying to make ends meet.”
Iowa is no stranger to competitive Senate races even though Trump won the state by double digits in the last presidential election.
Ad spending on broadcast and cable television has already surpassed $200 million this cycle, AdImpact shows. But in today’s dollars, the total ad spending in the 2020 Senate race was even higher.
Republicans have spent slightly more for Hinson than Democrats for Turek. That was the opposite in 2020, when Democrats spent nearly $30 million more than the GOP did in their unsuccessful effort to unseat Sen. Joni Ernst.
Iowa Republican activist Kelley Koch has been concerned that complacency will dampen turnout from conservatives, even those who are loyal to the president.
"They say, ‘Why are you all hyped up about the midterms, Kelley, Trump will take care of everything,'” Koch said.
It’s an assumption she’s working to counteract, and she expects “the Trump effect” from his visits will help protect Republican majorities in the House and Senate.
And while Koch supports Hinson, she doesn’t like it when she talks about pushing back on Trump.
“Right now,” Koch said, “we had better unite around our president.”
Associated Press reporter Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed.
Republican nominee for U.S. Senate Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, speaks to supporters, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, in Ankeny, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
