In my first Tampa Bay Rays North Carolina minor league baseball road trip article on DRaysBay, I pointed out that the changes made to the leagues of Minor League Baseball to form MLB’s new Professional Development League have created an opportunity for fans of the Rays and Bulls to see a larger number of Tampa’s MLB Top 30 Prospects playing in games against North Carolina based teams in their league whose ballparks are located in easy day-tripping distance from Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, NC.
As identified in that earlier blog post, the Rays High-A affiliate the Bowling Green Hot Rods traveled to Hickory, NC for a six game series versus the Hickory Crawdads (Texas Rangers) that started on Tuesday, June 22nd.