The Tampa Bay Rays are planning to experiment with an unconventional four-man starting pitching rotation during the upcoming season.
While a five-man rotation is the norm across Major League Baseball, Tampa Bay will be going a different route. Rays manager Kevin Cash said his plan is to use four starters. When the need arises for a fifth, the team will go with a combination of guys who normally pitch out of the bullpen.
“Our plan, we’re not going to five,” Cash said, via the Tampa Bay Times. “We’re going to try to stay at four. We’re going to have some bullpen days in there. We’re going to try and do that for a long period of time. We’re going to learn a lot in the first six weeks.”
Cash indicated that Chris Archer, Blake Snell, Nathan Eovaldi and Jake Faria will be the starters out of spring training.
Whether the Rays stick with a four-starter approach for the entirety of the season will be worth watching. There will surely be a feeling out process early in the season, as Cash noted. How the innings shake out on the occasions a fifth starter is needed should be followed as well.
Across the country, Mike Scioscia and the Angels will take their shot at a six-man rotation to accommodate their new star Shohei Ohtani. In Tampa, there will be a vastly different approach.
