Sergio Romo's very early entrance may signal start of big pitching change

Tom Gatto

Sergio Romo's very early entrance may signal start of big pitching change image

Rays leadership used its collective galactic brain to lay out the team's pitching on Saturday. The bright idea: start a reliever and play matchups in the first inning.

It was an intriguing experiment in pitching backward.

The fact it worked to perfection — in fact, it worked so well that the Rays are going to do it again Sunday with the same reliever — should make Tampa Bay more comfortable with making it a regular thing, especially on its "bullpen days." From there, who knows how widely the idea will expand?

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The Guinea pig was Sergio Romo, who had never started a game in his 11-year major league career previously and was only briefly a starter in the minors. The right-handed Romo was asked to employ his wipeout slider against the Angels' righty-heavy order (the first seven hitters were right-handed) and keep the Halos from taking an early lead. Romo then gave way to left-hander Ryan Yarbrough, who was asked to get through the LA order twice. (Yarbrough did that and then some, as we'll see later.)

Before Romo left, he did this:

Zack Cozart: Strikeout, swinging.
Mike Trout: Strikeout, swinging.
Justin Upton: Strikeout, swinging.

Romo needed just 18 pitches to do that, so, as Dewayne Staats noted on the Rays' TV broadcast, he might be available for Sunday's game.

UPDATE: Not only is Romo available Sunday; he's starting again. This time, he'll be the "opener" for . . . well, we're not sure, because the Rays hadn't gotten that far Saturday night. 

"It will be talked about," Rays manager Kevin Cash told reporters, per the Tampa Bay Times . "Hopefully it works."

How rare is this? Here's a clue:

Cash said in a radio interview Friday ( per the Tampa Bay Times ) that Romo was stoked to get the first inning for the first time, but Romo maybe missed the point slightly: The Rays weren't asking the former Giants closer to get 12 to 15 outs, just three. The Rays treated his outing as high-leverage, and Romo needed to be a shutdown setup man from the first pitch, which he was.  

Their mindset was based in part on the fact that major league teams score more runs in the first inning than in any other inning (that's something MLB Network's Brian Kenny noted Friday in lauding the Rays' decision). The Rays thought Romo was a better bet than Yarbrough to get them a zero.

The numbers said something else, though. Romo's OPS vs. right-handers this season coming in was .790; Yarbrough's opponents' OPS vs. righties, in about twice as many plate appearances, was .578. That's some huge reverse splits for the lefty.

Regardless, the plan worked. Romo's breaking stuff was filthy; all three of his Ks came on it.

Were the Rays trying too hard here? Were they wrong to ignore useful data and give Romo too much credit for being a veteran? Were they unwise to burn a top reliever early in the game? I say yes to all of that, especially after Yarbrough allowed one earned run over 6 1/3 innings following Romo, but I'm not running the show. The Rays saw Romo starting as a good play, and Romo made the decision a good one. That's what matters.

Yarbrough was a regular member of the Rays' "bullpen days" crew prior to moving up to No. 4 starter. Before Saturday, he had pitched multiple innings in five such games (one start, four relief appearances) and compiled a 2.49 ERA over 21 2/3 innings. The fact he entered in the second inning against the Angels was natural for him. He inherited a 4-0 lead that Romo and Daniel Robertson (second-inning grand slam) provided.

He was so good, he was allowed to pitch to some Angels a third time. He faced 23 batters and threw 92 pitches.

"The computers are high-fiving themselves," Rays TV analyst Brian Anderson said as Yarbrough was carving up the Halos in the seventh.

My pitching preferences land on the wrong side of the current divide: I want teams to go longer with their top starters and relievers, to bypass the shuttle guys (i.e., the seventh and eighth relievers) and give those last two spots on the roster to a third catcher or extra platoon bats.

Again, though, I'm not running the show. Cash, Erik Neander, Chaim Bloom and Matthew Silverman are, in the case of the Rays. They put their heads together and came up with this plan.

For one night, it worked. Tampa Bay is hoping it will work for a second day, too. If Romo does succeed again, that might give the Rays and other teams a lot of incentive to pitch backward more often.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.