The Rays' 2025 season has been off to an interesting start, with the team playing in an outdoor stadium for the first time and all those dang home runs to that short porch in right field.
The starting pitching has been great, and the lineup and bullpen have been a bit inconsistent, but there's been a wonderful storyline within that lineup: Jonathan Aranda.
While Aranda's hot start might not come as a shock to those who have paid attention to his performances in the minors and his strong finish to 2024, it's still been a great thing to watch take shape as the season continues to progress.
Aranda came to the Rays almost a decade ago to start playing in their rookie-ball levels, slowly making his way through their system as an undersized infielder.

He had a breakthrough 2021 season in the lower levels, mashing his way to AA where he posted a 162 wRC+ over 79 games for the Biscuits.
Aranda continued that hot hitting in AAA the next season, as he put together a .400 wOBA and earned a cup of coffee at the majors at the age of 24.
After another tremendous season in AAA during the 2023 campaign where he posted a .449 OBP and slugged over .600, Aranda finally got more consistent playing time at the end of 2024.
In September and October of 2024 he put together a wonderful 2nd half with a .813 OPS and reducing his strikeout rate by almost 2 percentage points.
This season he's finally putting it all together, with 60% hard-hit rate and 96 MPH in average exit velocity, both in the high 90s in terms of percentile performance compared to others in the majors.
He hasn't been walking as much as he'd probably like, and his eye-popping .464 BABIP speaks to some regression eventually, but for now Aranda's 236 wRC+ is something to get excited about, especially with some of the more heavy hitters struggling to get off to good starts results-wise.

Aranda will likely continue to be able to play every day at first against right-handed pitching, with most of his production coming in those matchups, but it'll be interesting to see if the Rays decide to give him a few more chances against southpaws, especially if Aranda continues his scorching hot hitting ways.
Could there be an All-Star game appearance in his future? Only time will tell, but by golly he's off to that kind of start.