Wacha Takes Hill To Try And End Road Skid

The Tampa Bay Rays will look to try and end their three-game losing streak tonight in Seattle with the second of four games against the Mariners.  Michael Wacha (1-1, 4.54 ERA) will get the start, taking on Yusei Kikuchi (3-3, 3.67 ERA).  First pitch is scheduled for 10;10.

Rays Starting Lineup

Margot RF

Arozarena LF

Meadows DH

Diaz 1B

Brosseau 3B

Lowe 2B

Mejia C

Walls SS

Phillips CF

Mariners Starting Lineup

Crawford SS

Haniger RF

Seager 3B

France DH

Bauers 1B

Moore 2B

Long LF

Torrens C

Trammell CF

Wacha Looks To Get Stretched Out Smartly

With Tyler Glasnow now on the 60-day injured list after suffering a partial UCL tear in his last start in Chicago, the Rays will turn to the 29-year-old Wacha to try and fill as many of the innings Glasnow would have pitched as possible.  But Wacha knows that he has some work in front of him before he’s ready to take on a full starter’s load of innings.

“Overall, I feel like pitch count’s not built up as much as I would like to be, but we’re going to go into it and be honest with how I’m feeling,” Wacha said Thursday.  “I don’t think we’re going to be pushing it too far, but just working on getting that pitch count back up.”

Wacha has not thrown more than 42 pitches in an outing or faced more than 11 batters since coming off the injured list on May 23, so he knows that he’ll have a pitch and innings limit at least the first couple of times through the rotation.

“I don’t know exactly what that number is,” the right-hander admitted.  “But I think we’re going to be pretty smart about it.”

Expect pitchers like Collin McHugh and J.P. Feyereisen, both of whom have shown they can pitch multiple innings for Tampa Bay out of the bullpen, to be used on days that Wacha is scheduled to start and less through the rest of the turn through the rotation.