I was wondering what the rc in 2.2.0-rc.0 stands for. Does it mean that its production ready?
It means it is a release candidate. meaning it is ready to go out, but it isn't proven yet so it's not ready to be marked as a stable release quite yet. You can think of it as a mature beta release.
If no bugs are found and it is deemed (by the developers/community) to be stable it can be marked as a full release.