While Sunday’s series finale against the Rangers originally was billed as a bullpen day, manager Kevin Cash said starter Michael Wacha will determine how quickly the Rays begin calling on relievers.
“He’s fresh. He’s fairly rested. We’ll let the game kind of dictate how long he goes,” Cash said. “But we have the availability to run kind of that traditional bullpen day where everybody contributes. Going into an off day, we should be in a pretty good spot.”
Wacha is making his fourth appearance since going on the injured list with hamstring tightness in early May. He made a start against the Blue Jays on May 23 and pitched two shutout innings, and followed with two relief appearances. Overall, he’s thrown 6.2 innings and given up three runs since the IL stint.
“Since Wacha has come back, he’s thrown the ball really well. The (velocity) has kind of ticked up a little bit in some of these more what (pitching coach Kyle Snyder) calls like ‘sprint-work outings.’” Cash said. “So we’ll continue to see what it looks like, but we’ve got all the confidence in the world that he can go give us a good start and we’ll hand it off to the bullpen as we see fit.”
Here’s the Rays lineup today:
Brandon Lowe 2B
Randy Arozarena LF
Joey Wendle 3B
Austin Meadows DH
Yandy Diaz 1B
Taylor Walls SS
Manuel Margot RF
Francisco Mejia C
Brett Phillips CF
And for the Rangers with Dane Dunning on the mound:
Brock Holt 3B
Isiah Kiner-Falefa SS
Nate Lowe 1B
Joey Gallo RF
Nick Solak DH
Willie Calhoun LF
Charlie Culberson 2B
Jason Martin CF
Jonah Heim C
• • •
Sign up for the Rays Report weekly newsletter to get fresh perspectives on the Tampa Bay Rays and the rest of the majors from sports columnist John Romano.
Never miss out on the latest with the Bucs, Rays, Lightning, Florida college sports and more. Follow our Tampa Bay Times sports team on Twitter and Facebook.