Notes: Yarbrough efficient; bats tee off

The only time Ryan Yarbrough struggled in his final tuneup for the regular season was in the third inning. And his issue was more about keeping a straight face, not pitching.

With two outs in the third, Yarbrough had to face former Tampa Bay teammate Charlie Morton, who started and hit ninth for the Braves in the Rays’ 16-5 win at Charlotte Sports Park.

“I was just cheesing,” Yarbrough said. “It was just one of those moments where you understand he's like, ‘All right, let's just get this over with' kind of thing.”

Morton put up a battle, fouling off a couple two-strike pitches, before flying out to right field. Yarbrough said he tried to get the veteran starter’s attention as they walked off the field, expecting he’d have something to say, but Morton just smiled back.

That was the most eventful moment of an efficient outing for Yarbrough, who will start the second game of the season Friday at Marlins Park. The left-hander allowed three hits and struck out four without a walk while throwing 60 pitches over 5 1/3 innings.

Yarbrough was so efficient, in fact, that he needed to throw 10 more pitches in the Rays bullpen after leaving the game in the sixth. Manager Kevin Cash said that puts Yarbrough in a good spot heading into his first outing of the season.

“It was kind of exactly how you want to go into the season,” Yarbrough said.

Game notes
• In his second game since returning to camp following the birth of his second son, Krew Jax, Kevin Kiermaier doubled and ripped a home run to right field off Huascar Ynoa in the fourth inning. Kiermaier quipped during an in-game interview with FOX Sports Sun that the homer was “daddy strength in full force right there.”

• With most of their starters out of the game, the Rays put up 12 runs on eight hits and four walks while sending 15 batters to the plate to face four different Braves pitchers in the eighth inning. Chris Betts drove in three runs on a pair of singles. Joseph Odom, Wander Franco and Xavier Edwards also recorded run-scoring hits, and Miles Mastrobuoni worked a bases-loaded walk. Moisés Gómez had the biggest hit, a towering three-run shot to left-center field that capped the long inning.

• Hours after learning he’d made the Rays’ Opening Day bullpen, lefty Jeffrey Springs gave up three runs while recording five outs.

“It was a good day other than the outing,” Springs said. “There's some small things to take away from that. But this is a good day overall, for sure.”

Chaz Roe worked a scoreless inning. Ryan Sherriff walked two while recording one out, and Louis Head finished the game by getting two outs in the ninth.

Injury update
Cash said shortstop prospect Greg Jones, ranked No. 10 in the Rays’ system by MLB Pipeline, will be sidelined for 6-10 weeks due to the significant left quad injury he sustained while running to first base Saturday in Fort Myers, Fla. Cash compared the injury to the one second baseman Brandon Lowe sustained in 2019.

“It’s going to take some time to heal,” Cash said. “Saw him briefly today. Seemed to be in good spirits, much less pain than what he was in. … You just hope that his athleticism and youth can get him to heal quick.”

McHugh encourages vaccination efforts
Rays pitcher Collin McHugh said he and his wife received their COVID-19 vaccinations last Thursday and encouraged others to do the same, endorsing it as the best medically recommended and scientifically proven path to return to normalcy.

“Personally, I am a big proponent of it. I think everybody who can get vaccinated should get vaccinated,” the 33-year-old right-hander said. “I'm not an epidemiologist. I'm not an expert in disease control. But the people who are experts in disease control and are the epidemiologists have given their consent. They've shown that they have confidence in it. So, I'm not smart enough to think that I'm smarter than they are. …

“But I'm just going to continue to reiterate that, if we want things to go back to normal as quickly as possible, in the baseball world, we do have to get to that number; we do have to have some sort of herd immunity. For me, it seems the simplest way to do that is with this vaccine, but we'll see if we end up getting there.”

Coaching staff addition
The Rays added Brian Reith to their big league staff for the 2021 season as a “Major League fellow, pitching development.” He will primarily support pitching coach Kyle Snyder and bullpen coach Stan Boroski in that role, according to the team.

Entering his seventh year in the Rays organization, the 43-year-old Reith was previously assigned to be Double-A Montgomery’s pitching coach this season. He previously served as the pitching coach for Class A Bowling Green (2018-19) and Class A Short-Season Hudson Valley (2015-17). Reith spent 14 seasons pitching in pro ball, including parts of three seasons with the Reds in 2001 and ’03-04.

Up next
The Rays will play their penultimate game of the spring on Monday afternoon against the Orioles at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, Fla. Rich Hill will start for Tampa Bay, with McHugh and lefties Sherriff and Brian Moran also expected to pitch. First pitch is set for 1:05 p.m. ET.

While most of the Rays’ workouts will take place in Sarasota on Monday and in Lakeland on Tuesday, they will hold an intrasquad game on Monday at Charlotte Sports Park. Chris Archer, Roe and Trevor Richards are scheduled to pitch in that game.

The Rays have not yet revealed the plan for Archer and Hill to begin the season, but considering Hill and Archer are pitching on the same day again, it seems possible that both veteran starters might take the mound in the Rays’ third game of the season Saturday in Miami.