LAKELAND, Fla. -- Two pitches into the third inning Monday afternoon, Shane McClanahan glanced behind him, saw second baseman Raynel Delgado settling under Javier Báez’s pop-up to shallow right-center field, and signaled back toward the visitors’ dugout at Joker Marchant Stadium.
He wanted to face one more batter.
Having hit his pitch count for the day, McClanahan didn’t get the response he was hoping for. He saw pitching coach Kyle Snyder shaking his head as manager Kevin Cash trotted toward the mound to take the ball, ending McClanahan's second start after 2 1/3 innings and 41 pitches during the Rays' 4-4 tie with the Tigers.
“I tried,” McClanahan said, grinning.
His reaction was just what Snyder wanted to see.
“I’m happy with where he is, and I’m happy that he’s happy -- and I’m happy that he wanted another batter in that third inning,” Snyder said afterward. “That illustrates health, right? It tells you that he wants to be out there.”
After an emotional return to the mound in his spring debut last Tuesday, those are the kinds of feelings McClanahan is looking for now that he’s back in his routine. He found plenty to feel good about after pitching into the third inning against the Tigers, even though he gave up three runs on three hits and a walk in 2 1/3 innings.
“Today was fun. Today was good. It's always good to be out there,” McClanahan said. “I'm trying to work on some stuff and build some confidence and learn to trust some stuff. Obviously the results don't indicate how I think today went for myself, but I thought I had a good day.”
The best part? He is, as Cash put it before the game, “a 100% normal, healthy pitcher.” His only goal now is to get ready for his next start (likely to be four innings or 50 pitches), his first start on March 31 in Milwaukee and however many starts come after that.
On that front, Monday’s outing was a success.
He threw strikes on 27 of his 41 pitches, and four of the balls came on a leadoff, four-pitch walk. He generated seven whiffs on Detroit’s 23 swings against him. His changeup, which finished two of his three strikeouts, looked great. His fastball topped out at 96.3 mph and averaged 94.2, not quite the 96.8 mph where he sat in 2023 but up from 93.8 in his spring debut.
That build-up is part of the process, Snyder said. And it’s all intentional for McClanahan, who is aiming to return to the Rays’ rotation for the first time since August 2023 as a complete pitcher, not someone entirely reliant on max-effort stuff to be effective.
“I'm still pacing myself. It's a long season, a long year. I feel like the days of me trying to throw as hard as I can every pitch are pretty much over,” McClanahan said. “Got to have some reserve. You've got to know when to put your best bullet out there. I still got it. Just choosing to be tactical about it and smart.”
Snyder said he won’t be surprised if McClanahan’s average fastball velocity is above 95 mph in his first regular-season start. By midseason, he could very well be bringing the same heat as his back-to-back All-Star seasons in 2022 and ‘23.
It’s also worth noting that some of McClanahan’s highest readings on the radar gun came with two strikes, when he had a chance to finish at-bats. That shows that, as McClanahan said, he’s still got it. He’s just trying to be smarter about when he uses it.
“He's going to continue to learn when to stand on it, when he needs to,” Cash said. “Your elite pitchers have that ability to pump up when they need it most, but I think it's fair to say Mac is still building into getting himself back to what he's capable of.”
Interestingly, McClanahan’s longest inning on Monday may have been his most encouraging. In the second, he gave up a one-out double to Austin Slater and a two-out homer to No. 9-hitting John Peck on what he thought was a well-executed, up-and-in fastball. He responded by striking out Wenceel Pérez, ending a 24-pitch inning.
When McClanahan walked into the visitors’ dugout and broke it all down with Snyder, he felt … pretty good, actually. He faced some adversity. He got through it. He wasn’t fatigued.
He was ready for another inning -- or at least another batter.
“If every pitch was max effort, you're not really saving many bullets. It's not even so much a throttle. It's being under control. It's pitching as opposed to just 'stuffing' people,” he said. “Got out of that, and I was like, 'I feel pretty good,' and I think that's a good sign.”