This story was excerpted from Adam Berry's Rays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Players often shy away from setting specific statistical goals at the start of the season. Some don’t want to get caught up in their numbers, focusing instead on the work they do each day. Others don’t want to let those goals even subconsciously affect how they play. A few worry that doing so would just set them up for failure if they don’t reach those milestones.

And then there’s Randy Arozarena. As a rookie last year, he made it crystal clear that he wanted to hit at least 20 home runs and steal at least 20 bases. It showed late in the season, as he ran all over the place to record the final four steals he needed in the Rays’ final series, after they had clinched everything they needed to clinch.

But that was last year -- 20 homers, 20 stolen bases. What about this season?

“At the beginning of the year, a goal of mine was to do 20/20 once again,” Arozarena said earlier this week through interpreter Manny Navarro.

Entering Friday’s series opener against the Rangers, Arozarena already has 30 steals, most by any Ray since Mallex Smith (40) in 2018 … but only 19 homers, tied with Isaac Paredes for the team lead.

“As the season has continued and has gone on, I created a new goal: To get 30 stolen bases,” Arozarena said. “And even now, I still plan on stealing another, maybe, five or 10 more.”

Whenever he hits his next homer, he’ll have secured the third 20-30 season in franchise history. B.J. Upton (2011 and ’12) is the only other Rays player to do it. The way Arozarena sees it, though, the last home run is the hardest part.

“It's way easier to steal a base than it is to hit a homer,” he said. “I’m going to try to hit that homer and focus on that, and then I'll just continue on stealing bases.”