This story was excerpted from Anne Rogers’ Royals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

KANSAS CITY -- When Matt Quatraro walks into Tropicana Field on Thursday, it will be a familiar place in an unfamiliar role. The first-year manager spent the majority of his playing and coaching career there, including the last five seasons on Kevin Cash’s staff.

Now he returns for the first time as a rookie manager. It won’t be the first time he’s returned a visitor; he was the assistant hitting coach for the Guardians from 2014-17. But it will be the first time he goes toe-to-toe with Cash, his close friend and someone he goes to regularly for advice.

“I keep in touch with guys there,” Quatraro said. “I talked to Cash regularly, [hitting coach] Chad Mottola, [assistant hitting coach] Dan DeMent, a bunch of the coaches there. People in the front office, too. I was there for long as a player and a coach, those people were like my family. I talk to them not just about baseball but how their families are, their kids, all that kind of stuff.”

If Quatraro feels sentimental or reflective ahead of the four-game series in St. Petersburg, he doesn’t show it. Instead, the matter-of-fact manager thought about one thing when asked if he had time to think about returning.

“To be 100% honest, the first thing I thought about was who they’re pitching,” Quatraro said. “It’s [Shane] McClanahan [on Thursday], [Tyler] Glasnow [on Sunday], we’re getting the heart of their rotation.”

Quatraro continued: “What I remember most is the postseason appearances, the ability to hopefully have a little bit of impact on the sustainability of the success there. The camaraderie of the staff and the players, those kinds of relationships are what I remember the most.”

Indeed, this weekend will be a tough test for the Royals, who at 20-54 are the second-worst team in baseball, going up against MLB’s best team in the Rays, who are 52-25. And it hasn’t been the easiest year for Quatraro in his first managerial job, managing a team that is on pace for 118 losses, which would shatter the franchise record of 106 set in 2005.

But Quatraro, according to several sources, hasn’t lost the Royals’ clubhouse, with players understanding it takes time for the processes he and the coaching staff are trying to implement with not only the young roster at the Major League level but with the entire organization. The front office and ownership continue to have faith in that process, too.

So do the people who will face Quatraro this weekend.

“I'm excited to see Matt and Hoov [bench coach Paul Hoover],” Cash said. “They were pretty instrumental in a lot of the things that we did here. I'm really happy for both of them, what they're doing in Kansas City. It'll be good to see them and catch up.”

Cash and Quatraro talk “almost weekly, if not more,” Cash said, and the two bounce ideas, thoughts and questions off each other.

“Q's perspective, that's what's made him so special. He's just got such an even-keeled, balanced perspective on so many different things, and I think it'll be one of main reasons why he'll be successful in what he's doing.”

Rays players weren’t surprised when Quatraro got his first managerial position this offseason; they were surprised it took that long.

“When he finally got the opportunity, the only thing that went through my mind was, 'It's about time,’” Brandon Lowe said. “Ever since I got called up, he kind of felt like a manager. The way that he walked around the clubhouse, the way that guys treated him around the clubhouse, what he did for us… it seemed like he had already been doing what he was going to be doing. It just kind of took that team to take the chance to get a new manager.”

Rays reporter Adam Berry contributed to this report.