Miller Rasmussen, the daughter of Rays’ ace Drew Rasmussen and his wife Stevie, was born during opening week of the 2026 MLB season.

It was a difficult birth, with Miller needing to spend time in the NICU. As baseball was happening every day, Stevie felt like she was immediately in survival mode. She told herself, “Just get through the end of the season.”

“Then the season’s like a little bit longer, and a little bit longer,” Stevie Rasmussen told CNN Sports.

Their rental home in St. Petersburg, Florida, ran through September, so they had to move late last month. They had the option to lease the new place for two weeks or all of October – they opted for the full month.

“So now I’m like, ‘OK, we’re here. We might as well win the whole thing,’” she said.

Down 3-0 in the World Series to the Milwaukee Brewers, the Rays will need a historic comeback to win the whole thing, but they’ve already gone deeper into the postseason than most of their players have ever experienced, with their families along for the incredibly hectic ride.

“My kids have no schedule, no nap routine,” Stevie Rasmussen said.

Along with seven-month-old Miller, they have a four-year-old son named Rhett, whose preschool back in Arizona has encouraged them to send pictures of Rhett in his Rays gear this month until he can rejoin classes.

“I’ve kind of had to let all that go, which is not really my personality. But in order to see dad – you can either have a schedule and not see dad as much, or you can have no schedule and be (in) a free-for-all,” Stevie Rasmussen said. “Seeing (Rhett) run up to (Drew) post game when I’m exhausted, I’m like, ‘OK, this is worth it.”

Even if the kids are too young to fully understand the stakes of what they’re witnessing, “they’ll be able to go back and look at pictures and say, ‘Wow, Dad did this,’” Brianna Betts told CNN Sports.

Betts is married to former MVP Mookie Betts, who has won four championships and is tied for 10th all-time in postseason games played.

“I’m gonna be totally honest and transparent,” Brianna said when asked if she ever feels like he has enough rings and maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to miss an October for once, “Yes.”

His Dodgers were eliminated in the NLCS this year, but Brianna Betts has learned a lot over the years of deep postseason runs, including in 2018 when her husband won his first World Series with the Boston Red Sox while Brianna was 37 weeks pregnant with their first child.

“We brought the carrier, we brought the diaper bag,” Brianna Betts said, so they would be ready in case she went into labor while on the road for that World Series. “Luckily, it was a week after everything.”

From that experience, Brianna Betts learned that being pregnant during the postseason, and worrying that your partner might miss the birth, is even more stressful than having a baby. At least, when it’s still only one baby.

“She was the baseball baby – baseball schedule, going to bed at midnight, 1 a.m.,” Brianna said of their daughter, Kynlee, who was born just after the 2018 series. “Like it was just easy, and we traveled everywhere. And then as you start adding and having multiples, it gets a lot harder.”

The Betts have three kids now – seven-year-old Kynlee, three-year-old Kaj, and seven-month-old Khari. Brianna Betts still goes to every postseason game, but the kids don’t travel for the early rounds.

“School schedule, baseball schedule – they don’t match,” she said.

Even for the games in LA this season, Kynlee went to school on game days. It made for rough mornings after late nights and leaving school early to get to the game, all to balance baseball with everything else.

“I try to just keep their lives as normal as possible,” Brianna Betts said. “It can be like a bubble at times. But I want them to have a life outside of baseball. LA is our home full time. He doesn’t just play here. We’re here the full year, ‘round the clock, and so I like for her to do her own activities, have her own friends, play dates, and just have her own life.”

Her kids are used to flying and they’re used to hotels. Last year, when the Dodgers had to fly back to Toronto the day before Halloween to finish out their seven-game World Series, all the kids dressed up for the flight and trick-or-treated around the airplane.

It’s the games themselves, which are often longer and later in October, that can be the hardest part of having three kids in the postseason. Especially because Brianna Betts and the other wives want to pay attention to what’s happening on the field.

“I realized it’s been over 10 years, and I still get excited and ready to go every time,” she said. “iPads get us probably halfway through, but then they’re over it after a while, and then you gotta bribe them with candy and snacks and all the food, and then activities.”

That’s on the road. At home, the Dodgers provide a playroom along with a wives’ lounge. The amenities reflect an embrace of families that extends to helping with housing when a player is first acquired. It all helps make surviving the entire baseball season possible.

Stevie Rasmussen takes the kids to Tropicana Field every day in Tampa to take advantage of the childcare the team provides.

“It’s the same people every night,” she said. “They were with Rhett since he was born. They’ve been with Miller since she was born. They’re almost like grandparents to my kids.”

For the World Series, the Rays brought the same childcare providers on the road, “which is life-changing,” Stevie said.

The plane is still chaotic. Families fly separately from the players on flights that have grown increasingly crowded as more front office personnel join the traveling caravan later in the postseason, but the younger wives without children help wrangle all the car seats and kids.

“We really are each other’s family,” Stevie Rasmussen said of the other Tampa wives.

Spending time with them, cheering equally for everyone’s husband, has been the highlight of the postseason. But, especially as a new mom, it’s not always as glamorous as it seems.

Stevie Rasmussen is still nursing Miller and with the crazy schedules of the postseason, that means a lot of pumping at the ballpark.

“I had my mom take a picture of me the other day standing at the World Series holding my pump bag,” Stevie said. “I was like: ‘This is what it’s actually like to be a baseball wife.’”