Sunday, August 03

TAMPA -- The Rays’ pitching staff is full of elite stuff.

From Ryan Pepiot at the front of the Opening Day rotation to Pete Fairbanks and Edwin Uceta at the back of the bullpen, everyone who’s taken the mound throws at least one premium pitch. Most of them have multiple “plus” offerings. That’s why they’re here, after all.

“Everybody,” said Fairbanks, looking around the visitors’ clubhouse this past weekend at Globe Life Field, “has good [stuff].”

But whose, um, “stuff” is the envy of the Rays staff? We asked the question two years ago and revisited it in Texas with a largely different group of pitchers. Tampa Bay’s 13 active pitchers were posed the same question: If you could take one pitch from a current teammate and add it to your arsenal, what would it be?

“Gosh, that’s hard,” starter Shane Baz answered. “This is hard!”

“Ooh,” said newcomer Mason Englert. “Let me look around the room.”

Some players approached it more strategically than others. Drew Rasmussen, for instance, mentioned six different changeups or splitters to complement his arsenal of power stuff. Lefty reliever Garrett Cleavinger employed the same strategy and landed on Uceta’s devastating changeup.

Others took a more imaginative approach. Side-arming right-hander Kevin Kelly picked Mason Montgomery’s fastball and noted, “If we add a left-handed fastball at 100 [mph] to my arsenal, I think that would be pretty electric.” Hard to argue with that.

Some pitchers couldn’t be limited to just one answer, so we wound up with 27 responses.

Taj Bradley essentially built a new pitch mix, selecting Uceta’s changeup (and his arm angle, for good measure), Manuel Rodríguez’s slider and Baz’s curveball. Pepiot did much of the same, imagining a wide-ranging pitch profile: his own changeup, Rodríguez’s sinker, Fairbanks’ slider, Rasmussen’s curveball and Kelly’s low-slot sweeper … plus Montgomery’s fastball.

“And I want to throw it from the left side,” the right-handed Pepiot said. “Ambidextrous, like the prospect from the Mariners.”

Once again, the answers revealed the Rays’ admiration for each other and served as a reminder of how even the best pitchers in the world can marvel at their colleagues’ work. Here are the results.

A first-place tie: Montgomery’s fastball and Uceta’s changeup (6 votes each) 

We went deep on Montgomery’s special fastball in the last newsletter, and all the metrics mentioned there made it an obvious pick in a survey like this. The triple-digit velocity (touching 102.2 mph), the extension, the vertical movement -- it all made for, as starter Zack Littell said, “the easiest answer.”

Uceta delivered his answer in Spanish with a smile: “Monty’s ciento [100] ball.” But his changeup was an equally popular response. The 88 mph offspeed offering generated a 37.4% whiff rate during his breakout season last year, and opponents hit just .154 with a .200 slugging percentage as he used it against righties and lefties.

“I’ve always liked Uceta’s changeup,” said Cleavinger, a teammate dating back to their time in the Dodgers system. “It’s a little bit like Jason Adam’s, that seam-shifted, harder changeup -- something I’ve never been able to do but always thought was super cool.”

Next up: Pepiot’s changeup, Kelly’s sweeper and Littell’s splitter (2 votes each)

Pepiot’s fastball was dominant last season, but his swing-and-miss changeup gets a lot of love. Same goes for Littell’s splitter, which produced a 34.4% whiff rate last year. Kelly gets a hilarious amount of horizontal break on his sinker and sweeper, and the latter yielded a .171 opponents’ average and .271 slugging percentage along with a 30.9% whiff rate last season.

Also receiving votes: Rodríguez’s sinker, Rodríguez’s slider, Fairbanks’ slider, Montgomery’s slider, Baz’s curveball, Rasmussen’s curveball, Bigge’s curveball, Bradley’s splitter, Englert’s changeup

Pretty wild that Rodríguez and Montgomery had both of their main pitches come up in these conversations. … Baz’s curveball had a heck of a season debut, as the Pirates whiffed on half of their 16 swings against it and took 10 more for called strikes. … The fact that nobody picked a fastball other than Montgomery’s likely speaks to the elite heat throughout the staff, as much as anything. In a small sample to start the season, the Rays have the highest average fastball velocity (96.1 mph) in baseball.

Tonight, the Rays will begin a 13-game homestand against the Angels, Braves, Red Sox and Yankees at George M. Steinbrenner Field before finally hitting the road again on April 22. Per Elias, it is tied for the longest homestand in franchise history and is the first such homestand since the then-Devil Rays played 13 home games in a row from Aug. 15-28, 2005.

Excluding 2020, the last time a Major League team played a homestand of 13 games or more was the Angels (also 13) from June 27-July 10, 2011. Single-game tickets are available here.

• The good news from the weekend? The Rays don’t have to go back to Globe Life Field any time soon. Read more >>

• In case you missed it, go watch Rays No. 7 prospect Chandler Simpson beat a routine ground ball to first base. Read more >>

• This play Taylor Walls made Friday night ultimately didn’t matter, but it was a great example of what makes him such a special defensive infielder. Read more >>

• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is staying in Toronto for the long haul, as MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson writes. Read more >>

Rookie outfielder Jake Mangum figured he was through the emotional part of his long-awaited MLB debut. Then the Rays spent the weekend in Arlington, a straight shot west on Interstate 20 from his hometown of Pearl, Miss., and two special guests joined him at Globe Life Field.

Mangum’s maternal grandparents, Steve and Brenda Vernamonti, made the trip with other members of his family and got to take pictures with him on the field before Saturday’s game.

“He just kept saying, ‘I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of you,’” Mangum said Sunday. “I thought all the feel-good, sad stuff was over, but whenever I saw him on the field, that one hit pretty hard.”

It was especially meaningful for Mangum, as Steve has been battling Parkinson’s disease for about four years. Mangum said Steve meant “everything” to him growing up, with his grandparents’ house serving as a “home base” for the entire tight-knit family.

“Happy he could make it. Traveling for him’s been tough,” Mangum said. “It’s just a nasty thing. Nasty, nasty. But he’s a fighter. He’s been going to physical therapy, working hard. He’s making it. … Dada and Mimi, they’re rock stars.” 

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