Advertisement

Martin Fennelly: A column to match Rays’ upside-down pitching

 
Another day, another start for Sergio Romo, though he struggles in this one and the Rays have to rally to defeat the Orioles at Tropicana Field. [Associated Press]
Another day, another start for Sergio Romo, though he struggles in this one and the Rays have to rally to defeat the Orioles at Tropicana Field. [Associated Press]
Published May 28, 2018|Updated May 28, 2018

In the spirit of the Rays' topsy-turvy pitching alignments, last goes first in this column. Go to the end to start reading.

"The buy-in that we get, the buy-in to each other, and the team effort has been really fun to be part of to this point," Cash said.

The Rays left Sunday for a nine-game road trip which begins this afternoon in Oakland and will take them to Seattle and Washington.

"It's the first time we've seen anybody do this," Pruitt said. "Does it work? I think we've done better than we haven't. It's definitely different."

Orioles manager Buck Showalter said, "You do what gives you the best chance to win regardless. They make a big deal of this, but they're doing it because they don't have any starting pitchers. They weren't doing it with Archer. They ain't doing it with Snell; They weren't doing it with Faria."

"It's cool," Stanek said Saturday. "It's something that's definitely going to shake things up a little bit. It's different. Different is not bad. I don't think it's ever going to get to the point where we don't have starters. This helps make their jobs a little easier. I can see this catching on."

"I'm totally fine," Cash said Saturday. "Whatever anybody wants to say I'm totally good with. We think it's the right thing to do for us to win games. We think this is a good strategy to help us stay in games, and so far we've done that."

Cash said innovation has its downside, including being called an "idiot."
This one day after hard-throwing Rays reliever Ryne Stanek made his first major-league start and retired all five batters he faced, striking out three, before giving way to winning pitcher Anthony Banda, who was optioned to Triple-A Durham after a 5-1 win.

"Everyone is kind of pitching in and doing their part," Pruitt said. "We've got a lot of guys, we're kind of doing this thing right now. We've got a lot of dudes in the bullpen who can go long innings, go deep."

But Romo's fellow relievers came through Sunday with shutdown innings, including 52/3 innings of shutout ball from Pruitt for his first save of the season and second save of his career.

"No, not really," Cash said. "The walks didn't help. Romo's walk, maybe my intentional walk, didn't help. Starters or relievers, you walk guys, you're going to give up runs. And that's what kind of put us in the hole."

But on Sunday, Romo, after three decent innings across three previous starts (the Rays went 1-2), hit the wall, allowing a walk and two singles after getting the first out of the game. Cash replaced him with Vidal Nuno, who let in three runs, all charged to Romo.

Rays relievers as starters/starters as relievers has been an interesting diversion, made necessary by the fact that manager Kevin Cash's Rays lack experienced starting pitchers. It has overshadowed the Rays trading Alex Colome and Denard Span to Seattle.

"It's fun," Miller said. "Obviously you get to go up there and kind of get things started. "I think the way we have a lot of guys clicking right now, it's just kind of fun."

Brad Miller was the big stick for the Rays, with a long home run to lead off the bottom of the first inning and a two-run double in a six-run Rays third. Carlos Gomez, who began the day hitting .197, homered and made two sparkling fielding plays in rightfield.

ST. PETERSBURG — Sergio Romo made his fourth start in nine days, lasting only four batters, but the "bullpen" responded, led by Austin Pruitt, and Rays bats rallied to beat the Orioles 8-3 Sunday afternoon as Tropicana Field.