Spring Training February 21 game thread: Braves at Rays

The offseason is officially over and now it’s time to get rocking and rolling. While it’s not quite the same as Opening Day and never will be on that level, it’s still lovely to either turn on the TV or fire up the radio and hear the crack of the bat and baseballs hitting leather mitts as spring training opens up. It’s not Opening Day but baseball is here and that’s the main thing.

Speaking of “not quite the same as Opening Day,” that’s how you could describe this lineup for the Grapefruit League opener for the Atlanta Braves. Mike Yastrzemski figures to be the only player in this lineup who will be getting significant playing time at the big league level for Atlanta this season as the other guys like Jonah Heim, Brett Wisely, Luke Williams and Jorge Mateo figure to be somewhere between serving as bench options or plying their trade in Gwinnett for most of the season.

That also figures to be the case for starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco, who is getting the start and figures to be a very long shot to crack the starting rotation for the Braves this season. Still, everybody’s going to be going for it in an effort to impress Atlanta’s staff, so hopefully we’ll see some standout performances this afternoon.

Here are the lineups for both teams:

Rays 2/21/26 Lineup

1. LF Jacob Melton
2. 3B Junior Caminero
3. SS Carson Williams
4. 1B Jonathan Aranda
5. 2B Richie Palacios
6. C Nick Fortes
7. CF Jonny Deluca
8. DH Dominic Keegan
9. RF Ryan Vilade

First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m. and the game will be streamed for free on Rays.TV and you can listen to the Braves feed on 680 The Fan/93.7 FM or the 680 The Fan App as well — also for free. It’s literal free baseball.

If you’re here for the first time or you’re a long-time lurker, now is as good of a time as any to join in on the fun of a game thread. It’s free and not only do you get to participate in the game thread, you also get a bunch of other perks that come along with having an account. Whether you’re new or you haven’t logged in since Nick Markakis was running around here, it’s the perfect time to get back in the swing of things. It also helps out the community here and the website as a whole, so everybody wins.