Sometimes, an outing can be impressive for the wrong reasons. That was the case with Tampa Bay Rays starter Jacob Faria.
The Tampa Bay Rays, by virtue of having just three healthy starting pitchers on their major league roster, have felt the necessity of the bullpen game twice already this year. However, given the brutal performance by Jacob Faria in the early going, the Rays bullpen has been stretched even thinner than it normally would be.
While Faria has struggled, the Rays have to hope that he reached his nadir for the season with his performance on Saturday. In a truly brutal outing, he allowed eight runs on five hits and five walks, including Xander Bogaerts‘ grand slam in the second. All that damage came on 73 pitches, while Faria recorded only five outs. As the estimable Jayson Stark pointed out, that type of performance has not been seen since Mike Pelfrey imploded in 2010.
Jacob Faria's place in box-score history today: Took him 73 pitches to get thru 1 2/3 IP in Boston.
— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) April 7, 2018
He's the first to throw that many pitches & get that few outs since Mike Pelfrey needed 74 pitches to get FOUR outs on 7/19/10.
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Although Faria was not nearly as bad in his first start of the season, he only lasted four innings. In that time, he gave up one run, but seven baserunners, as he was lucky to minimize the damage. Second starter Blake Snell has not fared all that much better, with only nine innings in his two starts. Right now, Yonny Chirinos and Austin Pruitt have the second and fourth amount of innings pitched on the Rays respectively, showing the desperate situation they find themselves in.
At this point, the Rays strategy to have a bullpen game has worked when planned. The problem is that they have had several unplanned bullpen games as well, with Faria and Snell unable to pitch deep into their own outings. Chirinos, or potentially former starter Matt Andriese, may be pressed into service to give the bullpen more of a rest considering their early workload.
One also has to wonder how long of a leash Faria will have. While season ending injuries to Brent Honeywell and Jose De Leon give the Rays fewer options as a replacement in the rotation, the Rays still have talent in AAA. Anthony Banda could become an option in a couple of weeks, and the Rays do have possible options at the major league level as well.
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The Tampa Bay Rays needed Jacob Faria to give them a solid performance on Saturday. Instead, they received a implosion the likes of which had not been seen in years.