Is the Tampa Bay Rays experimental rotation crazy enough to work?
The Tampa Bay Rays tried a new pitching pecking order over the weekend, but is it just crazy enough to work?
Last Friday, the Tampa Bay Rays announced reliever Sergio Romo would start Saturday night’s game against the Los Angeles Angels and pitch one or two innings. On Sunday Romo started again, which drew ire from Angels’ third baseman Zack Cozart.
On Saturday night, things went perfectly according to plan for Rays manager Kevin Cash. Romo struck out the first three hitters in the Angels’ lineup–Cozart, Mike Trout and Justin Upton–before giving way to left-hander Ryan Yarbrough. Yarbrough then went 6.1 innings, allowing one run on four hits, in the Rays’ 5-3 win.
Things were a little differently on Sunday, as Romo went 1.1 innings with three strikeouts and two walks. Then it became a more traditional “bullpen game” for Tampa Bay, with Matt Andriese (two innings), Jose Alvarado (1.1 innings) and Anthony Banda (3.1 innings) covering the rest of a 5-2 loss. But Romo did what he was supposed to in both outings, working through the top of the Angels’ lineup with minimal issue and no runs allowed.
Cash has used bullpen games in lieu of a fifth starter for the Rays all season. But the concept of using an “opener”, as labeled by MLB Network’s Brian Kenny, is a new twist.
The Rays have to find hidden edges in order to compete. But will they set a new template for how pitching staffs are constructed and deployed?
First off the Rays do have a legitimate ace in Chris Archer, with Blake Snell and Jake Faria as a suitable options to follow him. So even they won’t be using a one or two inning start from a reliever like Romo very often. But some injuries have also thinned the number of options to fill the back end of the starting rotation, which has brought some outside the box thinking.
Starting pitchers are inherently injury-prone and expensive, and there aren’t enough good starters around to fill 30 major league starting rotations all season. So filling 20 or 40 percent of those outings in a different way seems like a good idea. A capable pitcher can be set up to start, and take advantage of matchups, while setting up who follows him to avoid much of the trouble that comes with going a third time through an opponent’s lineup.
For Tampa Bay, they got great results once and middling results the second time with Romo taking the first inning or so. Game situation, once protecting a lead and the other a loss, dictated how five pitchers were used Saturday night and four pitchers were deployed on Sunday. Who’s available to pitch on a given day will also say a lot about how the rest of a game is constructed after an “opener” is used.
A deeper dive is required, along with a bigger sample most importantly. But at first glance a 50-50 chance to win a game when an “opener” is deployed seems like good odds, compared to trotting out some crappy No. 5 starter with an ERA north of 5.00 who should be in Triple-A.
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If the Rays are on the ground floor of a true revolution in how pitching staffs are used, and eventually constructed, it will take time before it’s adopted more widely. For now, it’s just an interesting conversation with a sabermetric tilt.