Tampa Bay Rays: Tyler Glasnow mixing up the ‘ol repertoire

With the Tampa Bay Rays happy that Tyler Glasnow will be healthy to the start spring training, Glasnow is happy to be adding a new pitch to his arsenal.

The Tampa Bay Rays begin camp today with pitchers and catchers reporting for initial workouts. When the team breaks out of the locker room to hit the fields for some long toss, a healthy Tyler Glasnow will be amongst them.

After an injury-plagued 2019 Glasnow is back to challenge Blake Snell for the title of staff ace and with him he’ll be bringing a new pitch.

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Glasnow shot out of the gates last season to a 6-1 start with a 1.86 earned run average. Unfortunately, during a May 10 start, he felt a twinge in his pitching arm and a day later was placed on the 60-day injured list with a strained right forearm.

He would return in September to make four starts under a strict pitch limit. He made two starts in the postseason against the Houston Astros and didn’t fare well, acknowledging he was tipping his pitches in Game 5 of the ALDS.

This offseason Glasnow worked on complimenting his fastball and curveball with a splitter. Glasnow prefers to throw his fastball the majority of the time and keeps the hitters off balance by mixing in his curveball. He threw his changeup only 32 times last season and has decided to go away from that pitch in favor of the splitter.

The Tampa Bay Rays have a solid one-two-three punch at the top of their pitching rotation. Behind Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow sits Charlie Morton, who is fresh off an All-Star season where he went 16-6.

If Glasnow can stay healthy and figure out how to disguise his pitches, his splitter should supplement his highly effective fastball quite nicely. The Rays will find themselves back in the postseason for the second year running.