Blake Snell's 20-win season shows Rays still have some old school in them

Tom Gatto

Blake Snell's 20-win season shows Rays still have some old school in them image

The Rays have done their darnedest this season to change the way major league pitchers are used, and yet they have an ace starter who's a 20-game winner and a Cy Young Award contender.

All-Star left-hander Blake Snell on Tuesday reached a milestone that used to define pitching success (and get pitchers paid). The fact he only went five innings, albeit five dominant ones, against the Rangers provided a new-age touch to the night, but Snell (20-5) still became just the second Ray ever to get to 20 (David Price, in 2012, was the first) and the first MLB pitcher to win that many since Rick Porcello, Max Scherzer and J.A. Happ did it two years ago. 

Snell has been one of the franchise's few constants in a season of chaos. He began the year in the rotation and, aside from a brief stint on the disabled list with shoulder fatigue, has stayed in it despite the introduction of the trendy "opener" and bullpenning. The 2011 Tampa Bay first-round draft pick has dominated hitters with a high-90s fastball and a knee-buckling curve, evidenced by his 1.97 ERA over 169 innings and .563 opponents' OPS.

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"The kid tonight is the real deal," Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre told reporters, per MLB.com.

Tampa Bay wisely has not messed with its breakout star, who is helping to lead a late, longshot run at a playoff berth. The Rays (85-66) trail the A's by 5 1/2 games for the second wild-card spot after completing a sweep of the Rangers on Wednesday afternoon.

Snell told reporters that winning 20 is "cool," but he was more interested in steering the conversation toward the team and its pursuit.

"I'm focused on the team winning and I'm focused on the playoff push that I still think we have and we have a really good shot at doing so," he told reporters. "I mean, there's so much other things I've got to focus on."

The Rays are in contention thanks to a 29-12 run from Aug. 4 — the date Snell returned from the DL — through Wednesday. It should be noted that during those six weeks, the Rays' staff has been set up in a more conventional manner, although you'd need to squint to notice.

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Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash has been using Snell, Tyler Glasnow and rookies Ryan Yarbrough, Yonny Chirinos and Jalen Beeks in a modified five-man rotation. Snell and Glasnow are purely starters; the other three mostly follow the opener. All five, though, are on a regular schedule (five or six days) that's aided by occasional bullpen days.

The quintet's stats from Aug. 1 through Wednesday:

PITCHER G GS IP ERA WHIP 5+ IP
Snell 9 9 50 1.26 0.74 8
Glasnow 9 9 44.1 4.06 0.97 6
Yarbrough 9 1 36.1 3.47 1.16 4
Chirinos 8 0 44.2 3.63 1.19 8
Beeks 9 0 34.1 2.36 1.14 4

Rays general manager Erik Neander told Sports Illustrated in late August that the team's 2019 pitching plan is fluid but that the rotation could be "traditional." If Tampa Bay goes back to, say, four full-time starters, which was the team's plan coming out of spring training this year before an injury to Nathan Eovaldi, then Yarbrough (15 wins, 3.88 ERA) and Chirinos (3.89 ERA) have done enough to merit places alongside Snell and Glasnow.

Regardless of how the rotation lines up, Snell is slated to be at the front, the same as most 20-game winners have done over the years.

That will be a small sign Tampa Bay isn't completely ditching old-school thinking.

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.