Griffin Jax has returned to the spot where his baseball career started – as a starting pitcher.

Jax, a 2017 Air Force Academy graduate and thus far the only service academy grad to reach the major leagues, won his second consecutive start on Wednesday, helping the Tampa Bay Rays top the Kansas City Royals 5-3 at home.

It was the fourth consecutive start in which Jax, one of baseball’s most reliable late-inning relievers over the past few years, had completed five innings under the tutelage of Rays pitching coach Kyle Snyder.

“I’ve been definitely happy with everything, and just continuing to learn,” Jax told MLB.com on Wednesday. “When you’ve got the best pitching coach in the Major Leagues on your side, it helps, and then some other really quality starters in the room to lean on. It’s just made the experience that much better.”

This was where Jax had long wanted to be.

The Cherry Creek grad earned Mountain West Co-Pitcher of the Year honors for Air Force in 2016 as a starter. That’s where he remained through the minor leagues and where the Minnesota Twins primarily slotted him after his callup in 2021.

But the numbers suggested a different usage might be better for the righthander. In his rookie season he held opponents to .175 during the first trip through the order. When batters saw him for a second time the average jumped to .283. The third time it was .360.

Jax was aware of the numbers and, though he prepared for 2022 as a starter, he was pulled aside early in Spring Training of that season and told he would be switching to the bullpen.

“It took a day or two to kind of swallow a bit of pride,” Jax told The Gazette in 2023. “But I was like, OK, I do want to help this team out and it’s way better to be in the big leagues in the bullpen than be in Triple-A as a starter.

“I’d be lying if I said I did (envision becoming a reliever). Throughout the minors I was always a starter and even my first taste of the big leagues was starting, so I think that was what I wanted to do.”

He thrived with Plan B.

From 2022-2025 only Tyler Rogers appeared in more games than Jax, who was called upon 281 times and posted a 3.34 ERA across 274 2/3 innings. The 340 strikeouts Jax posted in that span were third among relievers, trailing only Bryan Abreu and former Colorado Springs Sky Sox fireballer Josh Hader.

Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Griffin Jax throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)

Jax was dealt to Tampa Bay at the 2025 trade deadline for Taj Bradley and continued to work out of the bullpen, save for a pair of one-inning appearances as an opener.

He closed the season with 10 consecutive scoreless appearances and seemed destined to continue in the role he had carved for himself.

However, through his first 11 games this year Jax posted an 8.00 ERA. On April 26 the Rays started him against his former team, and he faced eight Twins batters over a scoreless 2 1/3-inning appearance.

Five days later he faced 10 batters in a scoreless start against the San Francisco Giants. Then his workload jumped to 17 batters. Then 20.

Over his last four starts Jax is averaging five innings with a 0.90 ERA and 21 strikeouts/four walks in 20 innings.

Starter to reliever is a well-worn path in baseball. Reliever to starter is somewhat rare.

In recent years players like Michael King and Seth Lugo have gone from bullpen roles to top-seven finishes in Cy Young Award voting as starters.

Making the move a little later in a career, as is the case with the 31-year-old Jax, comes with the bonus of limited mileage on the arm. Jax has thrown 410 2/3 big-league innings, a small number compared to similarly aged pitchers who have spent their careers as starters.

“Obviously, you don’t really see that too often, a reliever going to a starting role,” Rays outfielder Jonny DeLuca told MLB.com. “He’s just taken it and run with it and been really, really good for us.”

This season Jax has grown more effective as the game has gone on, with hitters batting .297 the first time through the order and .200 the second. Of the 11 batters he has faced a third time, only one has gotten a hit.

“Would like to be a little bit more efficient so I can go out for the sixth, maybe the seventh there,” Jax told MLB.com after Wednesday’s start. “But just to grind through that game and get through five there, I was happy about that.”

Note: The Rays will face the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field in a three-game series Aug. 3-5. Jax has pitched four scoreless innings across four appearances vs. his hometown team.