Tampa Bay Rays Game Preview: Key Matchups and Lineup

Tampa Bay Rays: Blake Snell will make his debut against the Blue Jays’ and RHP Thomas Hatch on Sunday.

Tampa Bay Rays: Following up a solid outing on Saturday behind great pitching from Ryan Yarbrough, Nick Anderson, and Oliver Drake.

The Rays have already released their lineup for the game, which can be viewed on Fox Sports Sun at 1:10 p.m. ET.

Tampa Bay Rays – Lineup

1. Ji-Man Choi (L) 1B
2. Brandon Lowe (L) 2B
3. Yandy Diaz (R) 3B
4. Jose Martinez (R) DH
5. Kevin Kiermaier (L) CF
6. Manuel Margot (R) LF
7. Hunter Renfroe (R) RF
8. Willy Adames (R) SS
9. Mike Zunino (R) C

Blake Snell has had some struggles in this abbreviated summer camp. They actually date all the way back to March when he was sidelined with elbow issues that required a cortisone shot.

While he has insisted the elbow is fine, he has struggled during his limited time in summer camp.

His last outing came in a televised simulated game last week, in which he walked four batters in just two innings. Those innings weren’t full innings as they wanted to limit his pitch count and ended the innings without earning three outs.

Today, we will see if he was able to work any kinks out during camp and put up a solid start for the Rays.

Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reported that Kevin Cash will limit Blake Snell to just 2-4 innings today.

Tampa Bay Rays – Key Matchups

The Rays offense will square off against RHP Thomas Hatch of the Blue Jays. Hatch has never pitched above Double-A and has a career minor league ERA of 3.99 in 79 starts with a career WHIP of 1.32. Hatch has notched 370 strikeouts with 150 walks in 403.2 innings pitched.

Randal Grichuk has 16 career at-bats against Snell with a .125 average, no homers, and no RBI.

Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Teoscar Hernandez are also hitting .125 off of the lefty in eight at-bats each.

Kevin Kiermaier, Manuel Margot, and Hunter Renfroe will all be looking for their first hits of the season today.