Who will be Rays' fifth starter? Here's where they stand

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- The battle for the Rays’ No. 5 starter job continued this weekend on Florida’s East Coast, as Josh Fleming, Yonny Chirinos and Luis Patiño each took the mound with a chance to make another impression to fill a rotation hole for the injured Tyler Glasnow.

Fleming and Patiño both pitched well, while Chirinos was knocked around in his one inning against the Marlins. Despite Chirinos’ rough outing, manager Kevin Cash maintained that he won’t rush to any judgments based on a single start, instead gathering all the information he can before setting up the rotation for the first week of the season.

• Frontrunners, dark horses to fill in for Glasnow

“We've got a lot of depth,” Cash said after Sunday’s 10-4 win over the Mets. “[There are] a lot of guys that can certainly contribute, and in fairness, we’ve got a lot of guys that would probably be in a rotation on some other clubs. That’s just not the way it’s drawn up this year. Fortunately for us, we're pretty thick in the starting pitching department.”

Here’s a look at where the three pitchers stand with less than three weeks until Opening Day:

Luis Patiño (1-0, 0.00 ERA)
Patiño held the Mets to one hit and one walk over 2 2/3 innings on Sunday, striking out three. In three outings this spring, Patiño has yet to allow a run, yielding just one hit and three walks over 5 1/3 innings.

“He fell behind a couple guys,” Cash said. “But I felt like he made some big pitches to get out of innings and have some clean innings.”

With a frustrating 2022 behind him -- Patiño was limited to only six starts due to oblique, finger and shoulder issues -- the 23-year-old is healthy and confident that he can show the Rays why he was such a highly rated prospect just a couple of years ago.

“I don't want to put more pressure in my mind that I need to win that spot,” Patiño said. “I have more confidence when I throw my ball -- every pitch. Fastball, slider, changeup or sinker, there’s a belief in what I’ve got. Throw my ball over the plate every single pitch, because I’ve got good stuff. When I have that confidence, I face really good hitters, but I think I'm the best in my mind and I can do my job.”

Josh Fleming (1-1, 7.36 ERA)
Fleming had a strong outing on Saturday in a 5-3 loss to the Marlins, throwing three scoreless innings in his first start of the spring. The left-hander allowed three hits and struck out two without allowing a walk.

The final line was good, but it didn’t come easy. Fleming worked out of a first-and-third, no-out situation in the first, then put another runner in scoring position in the third before escaping unharmed.

“I saw our bullpen getting ready, and that was the last thing I wanted, for them to take me out mid-inning,” Fleming said. “It felt good to get three innings in, to be able to work through a jam in the first.”

Fleming threw 35 innings last season, making three starts among his 10 appearances. He had great success against lefties (.643 OPS) but struggled against righties (1.091 OPS), so he spent the offseason working on a new breaking ball to complement his changeup and sinker, giving him something different to show right-handed hitters.

Since allowing six runs in one inning in his spring debut, Fleming has put together 6 1/3 scoreless innings over his past three outings. He admitted that spring results probably mean more to him as he competes for a rotation spot, but he is trying not to think about where he stands in the three-man battle.

“I would be lying if I said after my first outing I wasn't thinking, ‘Oh shoot, what's going to happen a month from now?’” Fleming said. “That's just the nature of the game; anytime you have a bad outing or any outing, you're always thinking about how those results are looked upon. It definitely can cross your mind, but for me, I don't control their decisions.”

Yonny Chirinos (0-1, 15.75 ERA)
Unlike Fleming, whose one blip came in his first outing, Chirinos was knocked around for five runs on five hits and one walk in one inning on Saturday against Miami.

“His stuff looked fine,” Cash said. “I think he just fell behind more than he would like.”

Prior to the outing, Cash called Chirinos “a bright spot of spring” for the Rays, taking note of his velocity and the effectiveness of both his slider and splitter.

“The other day [March 5 against Baltimore] he had a good outing, but he fell behind [2-0],” Cash said. “It was good to see him come right back, reset, get back into the strike zone and end up coming back to get the guy out.”