The Rays new late-inning duo is sparkling
- jagreens
- Aug 10, 2024
- 4 min read
The Rays have an uncanny ability to develop high-octane arms, churning out quality relievers as if they grow on trees. And wouldn’t you know, they’re doing it again.
It hasn’t been a typical Tampa Bay season, as the Rays have mostly wallowed around the .500 mark, struggling to attain any sort of sustained, week-to-week success. At the Trade Deadline, they opted to re-tool, offloading several veteran relievers (Jason Adam, Shawn Armstrong, and Phil Maton). It wasn’t a fire sale — only Adam was performing to expectations — but it wasn’t a supreme vote of confidence for the current team, either.
Erik Neander, the President of Baseball Operations, noted that the trades would create more high-leverage opportunities for the likes of Manuel Rodriguez and Edwin Uceta. If you don’t follow the Rays, you’ve probably never heard of either one of them. But isn’t that how it typically goes?
Let’s start with Uceta. The 26-year-old signed with the Dodgers out of the Dominican Republic back in 2016, at the age of 16 — after he worked three years as a gas station attendant to afford school. Over a two-year span from 2021 to 2023, Uceta was DFA’d by the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Tigers, Pirates, Mets, and Cubs, passed around like a hot potato. In his last stop at Triple-A Iowa, he allowed nine runs in five innings.
But Uceta pitched to a 2.55 ERA in 24.2 IP in the Dominican Winter League, and the Rays signed him to a minor league contract in December. While he’s posted a 5.77 ERA at Triple-A Durham, Uceta has been damn-near unhittable in the majors, with a 1.19 ERA in 22.2 IP.
Watching Uceta, the first thing that stands out is his funky delivery. He’s practically a side-armer, throwing the ball from a low release point — just 4.7 feet above the ground.
Uceta has dominated RHB (3-for-41) with a sinker, changeup, cutter, and an occasional sweeper. Those last two pitches are new to his repertoire, and they’ve allowed minimal hard contact, helping hold the opposition to a 1-for-20 mark. They’ve also alleviated some pressure off his sinker, which was hit hard in 2021 and 2022, when he threw it nearly half the time. Now, he’s throwing the sinker a career-low 33% of the time to RHB, and hasn’t allowed a hit with it. He’s thrown it even less as the season’s gone along, too, instead relying on his changeup and cutter.
The changeup in particular has been a weapon, generating a 50% Whiff%. It has tremendous movement, with more vertical break (4%) and horizontal break (11%) than comparable changeups.
Uceta is more vulnerable to LHB (9-for-26 with 3 XBH). He’s always been a three-pitch pitcher against LHB, but he’s changed his mix this year, swapping his curveball for a cutter, to go along with his sinker and changeup.
The cutter has run into a little bit of trouble, as it tends to hover in the heart of the plate. He doesn’t really have a pitch to crowd inside to LHB — his sinker and changeup mostly stay away — so he’s trying to shoehorn his cutter into this role. That’s a good idea, it’s just hard to do on the fly, and it’s easy to see how a pitch with exceptional horizontal break (78% more than comparable cutters) can bleed when he doesn’t get it in enough.
Rodriguez wasn’t as unheralded as Uceta: He was purchased by the Cubs out of Mexico in 2016, at the age of 18, and blossomed into an All-Star Futures Game selection in 2021. But little came easy after that, between injuries and a 4.88 ERA in 31.1 MLB innings; Chicago DFA’d Rodriguez in January of 2023. He went unclaimed.
Last deadline, the Rays traded for Rodriguez, sending another upper-level minor league arm in Josh Roberson to the Cubs. Since returning to the big leagues on July 9 — the day after the Maton trade — Rodriguez has a 1.74 ERA while allowing a .534 OPS. He’s become Tampa Bay’s de facto eighth-inning guy, filling Adams’ shoes.
Against RHB, Rodriguez is mostly a two-pitch pitcher, with a slider and a power-sinker that averages 96.6 mph. Right-handed hitters have knocked Rodriguez around a bit (10-for-52 with 2 HR), with the brunt of the damage coming from sliders backing up into the middle of the plate. But when he doesn’t hang it, it’s pretty hard to hit.
He’s far more lethal against LHB (5-for-32 with zero XBH), using a sinker, slider, and a 4-seamer, with the latter running at 96.7 mph. He’s throwing his slider more than ever (47.1%), but he’s integrated his sinker and 4-seamer higher clips since being recalled, becoming less predictable. This seems purposeful, as he’s elevating his 4-seamer, too, placing it in better spots.
As the Rays (57-54, 5 GB) remain in the playoff chase, the contributions of Uceta and Rodriguez only grow in importance. Tampa Bay struggles to create runs on a consistent basis, but, since June, their pitching staff has the lowest ERA in the American League. This weekend, they held the Astros to a total of four runs — and just one run across the final two games. On Saturday, Rodriguez struck out the side in the seventh, and Uceta pitched a 1-2-3 eighth. A day later, with the Rays running a bullpen game and nursing a 1-0 lead, Uceta and Rodriguez combined for nine outs while allowing no baserunners, a steady bridge to Pete Fairbanks in the ninth.
It’s another developmental victory for Tampa Bay, one paying immediate dividends as the Rays hunker down for what should be a surprisingly-intense final two months of the season.
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