This story was excerpted from Adam Berry's Rays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Slowly striding off the mound toward the Rays’ dugout, Shane McClanahan glanced over his right shoulder to watch shortstop Taylor Walls field Pete Alonso’s grounder then peeked over his left shoulder to see first baseman Jonathan Aranda catch Walls’ throw. After a few more steps, McClanahan looked down and shouted.
Starting pitching has been an issue during the Rays’ recent rut, but that was not the case on Saturday night. McClanahan fired five scoreless innings, putting himself in position to earn a win that never came because the Orioles stormed back to deal the Rays a 3-2 defeat in 10 innings at Camden Yards.
Still building up his workload after coming off the injured list due to back tightness, McClanahan was limited to 57 pitches over 3 1/3 innings in his previous start against the Orioles on Aug. 17 at Tropicana Field. That outing ended with McClanahan imploring manager Kevin Cash to stay in the dugout and let him finish the fourth inning.
This one ended in much more satisfying fashion, as McClanahan completed the fifth inning by retiring the red-hot Alonso with his 74th and final pitch of the night. Cash called it a “tremendous” and “outstanding” performance that was “a huge step in the right direction for him.”
“It felt good to compete out there, man. Kind of simplified it coming into the week and did what I wanted to do,” McClanahan said afterward. “That's just attack, compete, get ahead and be myself out there. Just attack and trust the guys behind me.”
McClanahan gave up four hits and a walk while striking out five. His fastball touched 98.6 mph and averaged 96.1. He used his heater and all his secondary offerings to get ahead in the count with a bunch of first-pitch strikes, then piled up 10 whiffs on 34 swings.
He had to work out of a couple jams after giving up consecutive hits to Alonso and Coby Mayo in the first and third innings. He handled both, retiring Tyler O’Neill then striking out Gunnar Henderson in the first then getting out O’Neill again in the third.
Asked how he got out of those situations, McClanahan paused and noted he was “trying to keep it PG” with a camera rolling in front of him.
“You just kind of do it, man. It's those situations that you live for,” he said. “You know what's on the line. You know what's at stake, and [if you] get yourself into it, you've got to get yourself out.”
It was the kind of outing McClanahan needed, and it should bode well for him and the Rays over the final month of the regular season. And if you want to look ahead, McClanahan continuing to pitch like that would be a huge boost for Tampa Bay come October.
“Man, did he look good. That’s the guy we’re going to need him to be from here on out. It’s who he is,” said Drew Rasmussen, McClanahan’s close friend and fellow starter. “As the season starts to get real serious down the home stretch, we need our guy to be our guy. And he’s more than capable of it, right? That’s no surprise.
“As the competitive juices get flowing again here and we kind of get through August into September and we turn the calendar, I do expect that’s who he’s going to be for the remainder of this year.”
That would be tremendous news for the Rays. Their first postseason series will either be a best-of-five American League Division Series with three off-days or, if you’re pessimistic about their chances of holding on to one of the top two AL seeds, a best-of-three Wild Card Series.
Either way, the Rays would only need three starters to get through it. If they can line up Rasmussen, McClanahan and Nick Martinez in some order, they’ll have three of the top nine starters in the AL by ERA (among those with at least 100 innings pitched) ready to go.
Granted, there’s a long way to go before then. And the Rays still must be mindful when it comes to their starters’ workloads.
Martinez is 18 innings away from tying the career-high innings mark of 165 2/3 he set last year. After Monday's start, Rasmussen is 9 2/3 innings shy of matching the career-high 150 he threw last season. McClanahan has worked 107 1/3 innings, but he didn’t throw a pitch in the Majors between Aug. 2, 2023, and March 31.
For that reason, McClanahan’s recent stint on the injured list might have been a blessing in disguise. Assuming he has a limited number of innings to work with, it’s better to use them in October than in August.
That’s beyond McClanahan’s purview for now, though. What made him successful on Saturday night, he said, is a mentality focused on nothing more than what was directly in front of him.
“All I want to do is compete, and when I stop caring about anything else other than controlling the intent level I have out there and kind of the way I compete, I think good things happen,” he said. “When you get out of your own way, it takes the complicated game and makes it a little more simple.”