Rays relievers ready to mix, match in high-leverage spots

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The Rays have earned their reputation for deploying pitchers as creatively and thoughtfully as any team in the Majors, but they were consistently traditional in one way the past three years.

If there was a save situation in the ninth inning, and Pete Fairbanks was healthy, Fairbanks was coming in to close out the game. Yes, the team that pioneered the opener had an old-fashioned closer. Of the 131 saves the Rays recorded from 2023-25, Fairbanks had 75 of them. He accounted for 27 of their 35 saves last year, and nobody else had more than three.

But those days are over. Fairbanks will work at the back end of Miami’s bullpen this season after having his club option declined during the offseason, and Tampa Bay will get back to mixing and matching and relying on a group of high-leverage arms to get big outs.

The Rays entered Spring Training with four relievers locked into spots in their bullpen: right-handers Griffin Jax, Edwin Uceta and Bryan Baker and left-hander Garrett Cleavinger. They’ve all handled high-leverage duties for Tampa Bay before, and they are all candidates to do so this season.

“To have that versatility and being fluid game-to-game might do us well. We'll see how it unfolds,” manager Kevin Cash said. “They've all done it. And what we saw years ago when we did it [was] they really supported each other. It was a pretty selfless group that went about it, and I think there was some excitement: 'All right, how are we going to get these next nine outs of this ballgame tonight?'”

That’s the way the Rays functioned in front of Fairbanks or how they managed their bullpen in the late innings when the big right-hander was unavailable. They had 13 players record a save in 2024, for instance, although nobody besides Fairbanks (23) had more saves than Cleavinger’s six.

But this should be more reminiscent of how the Rays ran things before ‘23, when Fairbanks moved into more of a conventional role to prioritize his health after signing a three-year extension.

In 2022, 11 pitchers combined to record 44 saves for the Rays, with no pitcher recording more than eight. The final outs were even more widespread in ‘21, when 14 pitchers recorded at least one save -- a Major League record that was tied by the Dodgers in ‘24 and eclipsed by the D-backs (17) last season.

“I feel like it's a good group to be able to do that. There's a lot of different matchups that we can go with. There's a lot of late-inning guys that can do it,” Cleavinger said. “It's cool to see guys in different roles, and we can kind of all be flexible and do it all.”

Ideally, the arrangement is mutually beneficial, with the Rays putting their relievers in the best positions to succeed. While they won’t necessarily have specific innings earmarked for certain pitchers, they do their best to seek out advantageous matchups that capitalize on their pitchers’ strengths.

Baker picked up on that quickly after joining the Rays last July.

“I think there’s a lot of trust in knowing when we're going to be used, and that pocket [of hitters] is our job to go out and get it done,” Baker said. “That’s just kind of what the game is going to, with all the data and numbers out there now. I think a lot of people are seeing how teams have done it successfully and matched up the right way.”

Uceta, who’s hoping to be ready for Opening Day as he works this way back from right shoulder inflammation, might be the perfect example. He pitched in every inning from the third to the 11th at some point last season. Uceta came in to record just one out in five high-leverage situations. He got six outs on seven occasions. He made 70 appearances, but he finished with just one save.

“Whenever they throw me out there, whatever type of situation, I have a job to do,” Uceta said through interpreter Kevin Vera. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”

That’s fine with Jax, too. Sure, there’s a certain prestige to having a stadium-stopping entrance video and high-fiving the catcher after the final out, but he recognizes that the biggest outs of the game might come against the top of the lineup in the sixth or seventh inning, not in the ninth.

The title of “fireman” suits him just fine.

“It’s nothing again that I'm not used to, so it's not like it's going to be hard to get used to emotionally,” Jax said. “I don’t want to have an ego. I just want to go when my name gets called on the phone. That’s enough adrenaline as it is.”