The Rays have selected the contract of righty Ryan Weber, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports (Twitter links). Tampa Bay moved fellow righty Wilmer Font to the 60-day DL to create 40-man space.
In other moves, reliever Andrew Kittredge is also coming up to the active roster. To create the two needed openings there, the Rays have placed lefty Vidal Nuno on the 10-day DL and optioned righty Austin Pruitt.
Weber, 27, was up earlier in the year but only made one appearance before being outrighted. He has been successful at Triple-A, turning in 68 2/3 innings of 2.23 ERA ball. Though his combination of 5.8 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9 aren’t terribly exciting, Weber has carried a 51.8% groundball rate and functioned in a multi-inning capacity — a consideration of particular importance given the Rays’ unusual staff usage.
In other news, Rays have signed Carl Crawford to be their “opener” and BJ Upton to be their closer…….
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Lol.
But seriously for the Rays & the use of their pitching staff this season it seems like a creative way to maximize effectiveness with the data on their pitchers & to keep the innings down on the younger pitchers.
They have one of the best pitching staffs in the game because of it.