{"id":688858,"date":"2026-06-07T00:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T00:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/688858\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T00:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T00:17:10","slug":"rays-move-steven-matz-to-bullpen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/688858\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays Move Steven Matz To Bullpen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left-hander Steven Matz<\/a> is heading to the Rays\u2019 bullpen, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times<\/a>. The veteran failed to escape the second inning on Tuesday against the Tigers. Matz has allowed a dozen runs across 8 2\/3 innings since coming off the IL in mid-May.<\/p>\n

Matz signed a two-year, $15MM deal with the Rays in December. His tenure in Tampa Bay was off to a decent start before elbow inflammation cost him a few weeks. The lefty posted a 3.86 ERA through his first seven appearances. A 4.55 SIERA suggested he was due for regression, but he was delivering solid innings at the back end of Tampa Bay\u2019s rotation.<\/p>\n

The elbow injury popped up out of nowhere, as Matz was coming off back-to-back quality starts. His velocity has been fine after rejoining the team, but his Stuff+ has slipped from 98 to 91. Matz has seen his swinging-strike rate drop by more than 3% in three outings since his IL stint.<\/p>\n

After operating almost exclusively as a starter with the Mets and Blue Jays, Matz has picked up ample experience as a reliever in recent seasons. He worked in a swingman role for multiple years with the Cardinals. Matz made 53 appearances between St. Louis and Boston in 2025, all but two of which came as a reliever. His pair of starts came in April with the Cardinals. Matz functioned as a traditional one-inning reliever after being dealt to the Red Sox.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay relied on a combination of Griffin Jax<\/a>, Mason Englert<\/a>, and Jesse Scholtens<\/a> to cover two rotation spots during Matz\u2019s IL stint. Jax has now been fully stretched out as a starter. Scholtens is down with a wrist injury, and Englert missed time with a forearm issue. The latter is now back with the big-league club. Englert covered five innings and tossed a season-high 82 pitches in relief of Nick Martinez<\/a> on Wednesday. He\u2019s expected to step into Matz\u2019s rotation spot, possibly as a bulk reliever, per Topkin.<\/p>\n

Matz was due to start on Monday against Boston. The move to the bullpen is \u201cnot by any stretch permanent,\u201d manager Kevin Cash<\/a> said, relayed by Topkin. A six-man rotation later in the season could make sense as a way to limit innings for Shane McClanahan<\/a> and Drew Rasmussen<\/a>, who have extensive injury histories. Jax is also working as a starter for the first time since 2021 and is on pace to set a career high in innings.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Dyer, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Left-hander Steven Matz is heading to the Rays\u2019 bullpen, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[51877,99,38519],"class_list":["post-688858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-mason-englert","tag-sports","tag-steven-matz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}