Bargain bullpen has simple strategy: throwstrikes
While other top teams value command, Tampa’s relievers not afraid of contact
ARLINGTON — The baseball gods might have sent the Tampa Bay Rays to the World Series just to prove a point. The Rays are tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers after two games, pursuing the first championship in their 23 seasons while squashing last year’s story line.
Remember when the
World Series was a festival of aces, three apiece for the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros last fall? Five of those starters earned at least $23 million per year, and the other, Gerrit Cole, would soon sign the richest contract ever for a pitcher: $324 million for nine years with the New York Yankees. Building a team through its rotation, it seemed, was the best way to win it all.
Now consider the Rays, who had the best record in the American League (4020) despite getting only nine starts all season that lasted at least six innings. That was the lowest total in the majors, tied with two last-place teams, the Boston Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers. Excessive bullpen use is supposed to be a bad thing, but not for Tampa Bay.
“This is the best bullpen group we’ve had maybe ever,” said Stan Boroski, the Rays’ bullpen coach, “and
we’ve had a lot of good bullpens.”
Boroski, 57, is the Rays’ longest-tenured coach, with 11 years on the staff. He played five years in the minors in the 1980s, turning to pitching after batting .169 as a catcher. He was better on the mound, but he never escaped Class A.
“I wasn’t very good, very mediocre stuff — but what I did learn is that strikes are your friend,” Boroski said. “Any success that I did have in the minor leagues was because I threw the ball over the plate. Never be afraid of contact. Your best chance of getting an out is the hitter putting the ball in play. Relentlessly attack the strike zone.”
Kevin Cash, the Rays’ manager, gave the bullpen an identity in September, referring to his “stable of pitchers that throw 98 mph” as a warning to the Yankees for throwing high and tight. And while several relievers do throw hard, the bullpen does not depend on strikeouts.
Rays relievers ranked 13th in the AL in strikeout percentage, with 8.78 per nine innings, but best in walk percentage, with just 2.9 per nine innings. The team is 34-0 when leading after seven innings — postseason included — and when Pete Fairbanks earned his first of three postseason saves, he became the 13th Tampa Bay pitcher with a save this season, themost of any team in history.
“It’s just a matter of getting strike one, getting strike two,” said John Curtiss, who has helped Tampa Bay hold the lead in three October victories. “As Stan likes to say, there’s never been a pitcher who’s been better behind in the count, and there’s never been a hitter who’s better when he’s behind in the count. It’s just trying to exploit that count-leverage matchup.”
Curtiss was released in July 2019 from Philadelphia’s Class AAA team, the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, with a 10.95 ERA. He auditioned for15 teams that September and October, with no offers. He even lost his job with a winter league team in the Dominican Re
public.
“They told me right before the season started that I could come to, like, the Dominican minor league,” he said. “My roster spot evaporated. Literally nobody wanted me. So it was the Rays, and I’m grateful.”
The Rays made Curtiss his only minor league contract offer, endorsed the mechanical refinements he had tried last winter and convinced him he could
thrive if he just threw strikes. This season, Curtiss worked 25 innings with a 1.80 ERA and only three walks.
Throwing strikes seems like an obvious strategy, but not all strikes are the same. Command — the ability to locate the ball anywhere a pitcher wants — is considered more important than having the control to throw over the plate. The Rays upend that notion.
Their staff identifies and emphasizes one or two things a pitcher does best. Coaches will help pitchers understand how their pitches behave, and suggest sequences. But most advice is simple.
“Throw the ball over the plate,” Boroski said. “We’re not big on location; we don’t go, ‘Down and away, up and in.’ It’s, ‘Throw strike one, throw strike two and expand the strike zone.’ When you give them that kind of freedom, they understand that they don’t have to be perfect for every pitch.”
Diego Castillo, who earned his third postseason save in the Rays’ 6-4 victory in Game 2, is a product of the Tampa Bay farm system. But most of the relievers have a story like Curtiss’ — given up by other teams and acquired for a bargain price.
It should not seem odd or radical, Cash said, for a team to use its best relievers whenever a high-leverage-moment arises. Whomever he calls, hehas a stable of strike-throwers in reserve — and no apologies for finding a new way to win.