Rays ready to welcome back Tyler Glasnow

This story was excerpted from Adam Berry’s Rays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ST. PETERSBURG -- Triple-A Durham reliever Dusten Knight had a pretty good view when Tyler Glasnow made his first three Minor League rehab starts.

Watching from the Bulls' bullpen as Glasnow gave up one run on one hit and struck out eight of the 17 batters he faced, Knight didn’t see a pitcher who belonged in Triple-A.

“No,” Knight said, “he looks like a guy who's ready to go out and pitch the seventh game of the World Series.”

For starters, Glasnow is expected to be activated from the 60-day IL to pitch on Wednesday night against the Guardians at Progressive Field. It will be the big right-hander’s first Major League outing since June 14, 2021, completing the end of a long recovery process from Tommy John surgery. And it will be a huge addition for the Rays.

“I mean, it's the potential of adding a Cy Young candidate to our team and into the clubhouse on top of who he is as a person,” Drew Rasmussen said.

“Glas' talent, his accomplishments on the field kind of speak for themselves,” Corey Kluber added. “Definitely exciting for him, I'm sure, and it's also exciting for us to add a guy like that to the mix.”

“It's Tyler Glasnow,” Shane McClanahan said. “The guy’s electric. Great teammate, great leader.”

Glasnow will likely be limited to around three innings and 45 pitches in his first start back. He will remain on a starter’s schedule “for the foreseeable future,” manager Kevin Cash said on Sunday, pitching every fifth or sixth day and building up his workload however possible.

So you might not see the full, unleashed Glasnow until next season, but look, any Tyler Glasnow is better than no Tyler Glasnow at all -- especially for a team that’s been wrecked by injuries from start to finish this year.

And when you consider that he’d been pitching with a failing ulnar collateral ligament for years before it finally blew out, it’s possible that we still haven’t seen the best of Glasnow.

“It's good to have a UCL, you know?” Glasnow said, smiling. “I feel good. Stuff is good. Velo is good. I feel healthy. So that was, like, all I wanted -- and I got it, so it's good.”

“This is the first time that he's been throwing pain-free in quite some time. So he's encouraged by that,” Cash added. “But it's our job – [pitching coach Kyle Snyder] and I -- to make sure that we keep it that way and don't push it more than what's needed.”

Glasnow should have two chances to get his feet underneath him before the postseason rolls around. And that’s where things could get really interesting for the Rays, because their starting pitching should give them a chance in any postseason series.

In a best-of-three Wild Card Series, for instance, the Rays could line up McClanahan in Game 1, Glasnow in Game 2 and perhaps Rasmussen or Jeffrey Springs in Game 3. Or they could use Springs in the same game as one of the hard-throwing righties, throwing opposing hitters for a loop with the kind of wildly different looks they love to present lineups. In a longer series, they could use all four or mix in Kluber.

For now, though, Glasnow is just looking forward to his first start back.

“I'm glad I'm up here now, just to get some feelers … if we end up with playoffs and everything like that, just kind of get in that atmosphere again,” Glasnow said. “I think that's just the only thing I’ve got to feel again. But I'm excited. I feel good.”