The Rays “bullpen day” experimentation has doubled as an adventure in mislabeling, as it’s really a strategy designed to get all of the Rays capable starters onto the mound, with some allowance to roll relief pitchers out at the start of games as warranted.
It should have been a brilliant idea, but the communication of that idea only resulted in ridicule, with Kevin Cash only changing his rhetoric to call all of his longmen “starters” instead of relievers — April 6: “As of today we have eight starters; that’s our new motto now” — and a drought of commentary from the front office until last week, when Jared Diamond finally plied some clarity for the public record.