The hits just keep coming at the Tampa Bay Rays bullpen.
While Tampa Bay will have closer Diego Castillo back active Saturday after spending one day on the COVID-19 injured list, they will now put their 14th different pitcher on the shelf this season, as RHP Chris Mazza goes on the 10-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation.
“It’s just another injury that we work hard to try and avoid,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “But they keep creeping up on us a little bit.”
For Castillo, it’s a quick bounce back from a sore left shoulder and general soreness and fatigue after receiving his second COVID vaccination shot on Thursday.
“Thank God I actually feel good,” the reliever said through translator Manny Navarro Saturday. “I feel really good today.”
The same unfortunately can’t be said for Mazza, who worked the final three innings of the Rays Friday night’s loss, keeping the Blue Jays off the scoreboard.
“He did really well in helping us out and preserving the bullpen, but afterwards he said his shoulder was barking a little bit,” Cash explained. “He went and got checked out by the doctor, and there’s some inflammation there that probably we need to let calm down.”
Cash said Mazza will be shut down from throwing and be re-evaluated in 10-15 days, but they hope that it won’t be an extended stay on the injured list for the right-hander, who the Rays acquired from the Boston Red Sox at the start of the spring for minor-league catcher Ronaldo Hernandez.
Steve Carney is the founder and publisher of St. Pete Nine. One of the people most associated with baseball coverage in Tampa Bay, he spent 13 seasons covering the Rays for flagship radio station WDAE, first as producer of Rays Radio broadcasts, then as beat reporter beginning in 2011. He likes new analytics and aged bourbon, and is the owner of one of the ugliest knuckleballs ever witnessed by baseball scouts.
