Patchwork 'pen is plenty good enough for Rays

HOUSTON -- They don’t have a lot of household names. They just get a lot of outs.

The Tampa Bay bullpen is a motley mix, an Island of Misfit Toys who now toy with the opposition. The Rays don’t have an Aroldis Chapman or Kenley Jansen, and it doesn’t really matter. Because what they do have is a dizzying array of the kind of stuff best measured by Statcast and most disruptive to big league batters in big spots.

In other words, they have the kind of mix capable of swinging a short series -- perhaps even this best-of-five American League Division Series in which they are pitted against arguably the best team in baseball, the Houston Astros.

Game	Date	Result	Highlights
Gm 1	Oct. 4	HOU 6, TB 2	Watch
Gm 2	Oct. 5	HOU 3, TB 1	Watch
Gm 3	Oct. 7	TB 10, HOU 3	Watch
Gm 4	Oct. 8	TB 4, HOU 1	Watch
Gm 5	Oct. 10	HOU 6, TB 1	Watch

Shop for postseason gear: Rays | Astros
• Postseason schedule and bracket

“It’s not a lot of names your average fan would know,” primary closer Emilio Pagán said of the Rays’ bullpen, “but when you look at the stuff we’re throwing out, it’s pretty elite.”

The Rays will roll into a raucous Minute Maid Park on Friday, and, as good as they feel about Tyler Glasnow in Game 1, Blake Snell in Game 2 and Charlie Morton in Game 3 back home, it’s no secret the local and national focus is on what Houston is trotting out there with Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Zack Greinke in succession.

But the 2017 and ’18 postseasons saw just one complete game across all of MLB (Verlander’s memorable effort in Game 2 of the ’17 American League Championship Series against the Yankees), so it would seem there’s a pretty darn decent chance of relievers having a pretty huge role in this series, too. Heck, the 2018 postseason was the first in which relievers essentially accounted for half of all the October innings. (We’re rounding up from the actual number of 49.7 percent.)

So ’pen performance matters more than ever. Given that bullpens are typically the most volatile area of a roster and evolve considerably over the course of 162, all that matters in this moment is not what you’ve been in months or years past but what you can contribute right now.

Right now, the Rays might have the best bullpen of any October team.

And it was built entirely under the radar:

Pagán: Acquired in the three-team deal last December that sent Jurickson Profar from Texas to Oakland, Pagan’s expected weighted on-base average (or what his opponents’ on-base average should have been, based on quality of contact) of .219 was the second-best in baseball among those with at least 200 batters faced.

• Buy Rays gear | Postseason schedule and bracket

Nick Anderson: Acquired from the Marlins at the Trade Deadline, the right-hander used a deceptive fastball/curve combo to strike out 41 and walk just two in 21 1/3 innings with the Rays. For the season, his 37.9 percent whiff rate was tied for fifth in MLB among those with at least 500 swings generated. He struck out four of the five A’s he faced in the AL Wild Card Game.

Diego Castillo: Signed as an international free agent back in 2014, the right-hander throws straight gas. His fastball averages 98.2 mph, which helped him strike out 31.1 percent of batters faced in the season’s second half.

Colin Poche: The lefty, acquired as a player to be named later in the May 2018 deal that sent Steven Souza Jr. to Arizona, has allowed just a .222 slugging percentage in his last 22 innings, in part because of the most four-seam fastball “rise” (plus-4.3 inches) among those with at least 500 four-seamers thrown.

Chaz Roe: The Rays basically bought Roe from the Braves back in July 2017. The cost? One dollar. The 15.1 inches of average vertical movement on his slider is by far the most of anybody who employs the pitch. (The Reds’ Sonny Gray was second, at 10.7 inches.) Opponents are slugging just .296 against his slider.

Oliver Drake: He’s been everywhere, man. The right-hander pitched for a record five teams last year. But he’s settled in as a lefty killer with the Rays. Left-handed batters have a crazy bad .147/.163/.196 slash line against him.

What’s crazy about the construction of this go-to group is that only two of the six -- Roe and Castillo -- were with the Rays on Opening Day. Pagán, Poche and Drake were all at Triple-A Durham. Anderson, a 29-year-old rookie, was with the Marlins.

“That's pretty amazing,” manager Kevin Cash said. “Emilio Pagán deserves a heck of a lot of credit. Nick Anderson, that acquisition, what he's done. I think when Nick got here, that really started to gel things.”

The midseason relief market seemed to center around All-Stars Will Smith, Shane Greene and Kirby Yates. (Greene was the only one of those three actually dealt.) The Rays targeted the potential of Anderson, who was in the midst of posting a 3.92 ERA and 1.28 WHIP with the last-place Marlins, just as they targeted something they liked in each of his bullpen mates.

“The Rays have done a good job of identifying the stuff we do well, as compared to the rest of the league,” Pagán said. “And we’ve built a camaraderie and just passed the baton.”

The team that introduced us to the opener last year has created a culture in which the roles aren’t rigid, and anybody can handle a high-leverage assignment.

“Whenever our name gets called, all of us are ready to go,” Anderson said. “That creates a good environment. We’re always pulling for each other: ‘Hey, you could be going in the first, you could be going in the fourth.’ We’ve all bought into that mindset.”

Now, they’ve bought into the idea that a deep bullpen loaded with sick stuff can potentially swing a series.