Griffin Jax departs after taking liner off back

Jax gave up three hits, walked two and struck out five. He improved to 8-10 with the win. Jax has won two of his last three starts and allowed only one run in 15 innings in that span. He has a 3.62 ERA this year. Jax is lined up to face the Phillies on the road in the last weekend of the regular season.

Jax gave up two hits, walked none and struck out seven. He’s allowed two runs and recorded nine strikeouts in 10 innings over his last two starts. Jax has a 3.40 ERA and 100 strikeouts in 95 1/3 innings over 21 starts since the Rays moved him into the rotation at the end of April. Jax is lined up to face the Red Sox at home on Sunday.

It was nice for Jax to quell the concerns after his rough return from the injured list last week with a strong start here, but he still wasn’t completely back to form. His command was off in general and he hung far too many breaking balls, the Braves just didn’t do much with those mistakes. His velocity was also still down about a tick compared to his season averages and he only forced four total swings-and-misses. Back to those breaking balls, the Braves found it easy to spit on practically every one that Jax threw out of the zone and he’ll need to get more whiffs on them if he wants to truly return to form. He’s scheduled to face the Athletics at home next time out.

Jax was abysmal in his return from an elbow injury. The Mets jumped on him for three runs right away in the top of the first inning and then added three more in the third. In total, nine of the 14 balls the Mets put in play off Jax were hard-hit as their left-handed heavy lineup consistently teed off on his changeup. We expected him to be rusty in his first start back, but this was a catastrophe. Also, it’s important to note that his velocity was down about one mile per hour across the board. He’ll have a chance to right the ship next Wednesday on the road against the Braves.

Jax threw 42 pitches in his last rehab start with was also on August 23rd. There had been a discussion that he might throw one more minor league start, but that never came to fruition, so we would expect him to be under 65 pitches in this outing on Wednesday. He struggled to command his changeup and sweeper in that rehab outing, so we’ll see how sharp he looks against the Mets. We would leave him on the bench in fantasy leagues.

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.

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.

It’s arguably the best-case scenario after Jax hit the shelf with elbow discomfort over the weekend. It sounds like he won’t require surgery, which is the positive news. Rays manager Kevin Cash said that Jax will be shut down for a couple days before starting a throwing program. There’s a decent chance that he’s back in Tampa Bay’s rotation at some point next month.

The 31-year-old hurler was scratched from his scheduled start on Saturday due to the elbow issue and he’ll now be shelved for at least a couple of weeks. Michael Grove was recalled from Triple-A Durham to take his spot on the Rays’ active roster.

Ryan Vilade started the game with an error at second base and Jax later made an error of his own on a tapper back to the mound in the White Sox’s two-run first inning. The lone earned run was produced by an Andrew Benintendi 378-foot home run. It’s the fourth time in five starts that Jax has allowed exactly one earned run. He’ll be a fine option in mixed leagues with a road start in Seattle coming up.