Griffin Jax set to start for Rays on Friday evening

Seymour relentlessly pounded the strike zone, throwing 65 of 88 pitches for strikes, while notching his second double-digit strikeout performance of the season. He generated an absurd 19 swinging strikes, including 12 on his fastball and changeup combination, to finish with a near-elite 36 percent CSW. He limited New York’s lineup to just a single run into the middle innings before coughing up a solo homer to Mark Vientos in the seventh. He was charged with an additional run after teammate Casey Legumina gave up an RBI single to Francisco Alvarez later in the frame. The 27-year-old southpaw has allowed three earned runs or more in four consecutive starts since August 9. He’s offset that by striking out at least seven batters in four of those five outings. He’ll close out a two-start week with a road matchup against the Rangers on Sunday.

McClanahan was solid in this one, pitching four innings of shutout ball before seeing two runs come across to score in the fifth. The first run would come via a fielder’s choice by Freddy Fermin to bring in Jackson Merrill, with Xander Bogaerts coming around to score on the next at-bat on a fielder’s choice by Jake Cronenworth. McClanahan would allow a two-run homer to Jackson Merrill in the sixth inning and was pulled shortly after. McClanahan made only three starts this month, but ends August with a respectable 3.24 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP while picking up one win. He’ll look to pick up his 11th win in his next start, which is set for Wednesday at home against the Mets.

Seymour gave up seven hits, walked none and struck out five. He fell to 9-5 with the loss. Seymour had 33 strikeouts in 23 innings over four starts in August entering play Tuesday. He only struck out five in 5 2/3 innings against the Tigers. Seymour has a 4.21 ERA. He’s lined up to face the Mets at home next week.

Jax struck out two and walked two while throwing 42 pitches in the outing. He threw 60 percent of his pitches for strikes and posted a 17 percent swinging strike rate and 31 percent CSW. His sinker has 95.1 mph, and his four-seamer was 95.4 mph, so there didn’t seem to be much concern with his velocity. He did struggle to command his changeup and sweeper, so the Rays may opt to give him one more rehab start and try to get him closer to 60 pitches before activating him.

McClanahan was lights out on Saturday, holding the Orioles scoreless over five innings of work. He scattered four hits and one walk, tossing 47 of 74 pitches for strikes to collect five strikeouts. The 29-year-old right-hander will take a 3.10 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, and a 99/36 K/BB ratio across 107 1/3 innings into a start against the Padres in Tampa Bay on Friday.

Kazuma Okamoto, Nathan Lukes and Daz Cameron all took him deep. That brings Seymour’s total of homers allowed to 18 in 101 1/3 innings. The 123/32 K/BB ratio is really nice, but he needs to do a better job of keeping the ball in the park to emerge as an above average starter. He should face the Tigers next week, but with Griffin Jax making his way back, it’s possible that will be his final start for a spell.

This phenomenal and unexpectedly good news for Jax who went on the injured list for elbow discomfort nine days ago and then sought a second opinion from Dr. Keith Meister regarding it. He deemed surgery wouldn’t be necessary and now Jax is back on a mound just one week later. Kevin Cash told Topkin that Jax “looked good” and was able to use all of his pitches. The plan as of now is for him to make a rehab start on Sunday, meaning he could be back with the Rays as soon as next week.

McClanahan threw just 57 pitches in his return from the injured list, his first outing since hitting the shelf with mid-back tightness in late July. He surrendered four hits, including a second-inning solo homer to Coby Mayo. The positive news here is that he finished with three strikeouts and his fastball velocity was right in line with his previous season average at 95.6 mph. He’ll square off against the Orioles in a road tilt to close out a two-start week on Saturday.

McClanahan missed just a couple of turns back with back tightness. He’ll start against the Orioles tonight. Fantasy managers shouldn’t anticipate him shouldering a significant workload in this return outing since he threw just 30 pitches over three innings during his lone minor league rehab start for Triple-A Durham last week.

Seymour struck out nine and allowed just four hard-hit balls. Unfortunately, two of those hard-hit balls were homers from Pete Alonso and Christian Encarnacion-Strand. Still, he did notch a third straight quality start. Seymour figures to take his next turn Thursday against the Blue Jays, and he rates as a decent play in mixed leagues, He might be bumped from the Tampa Bay rotation if Griffin Jax returns at the end of the month.