Robbie Ray, tight pants and all, pushes memories of 2022 into the rear view
By Charles Hamaker
Peoria, AZ – Entering his second year as a Mariner, Robbie Ray is looking to take the positives from last season and leave the negatives far behind as he enters this season as part of one of the best rotations in baseball. The 2021 AL Cy Young winner had a peaks and valleys kind of year, most notably with one of his last outings (in relief, which was an interesting decision) allowing a mammoth homer to Yordan Alvarez in the second game one of the ALDS against the Astros. Looking ahead, armed with a new pitch, Robbie looks to create a formidable one-two punch at the top of the rotation with Luis Castillo.
“I think for me, it was just kind of fine tuning some things. Just really feeling trying to nail down the slider shape and get it to where I want it to be. And I felt like it was a successful day in doing that.”
Robbie Ray in his final outing of the Spring, against the Arizona Diamondbacks (Photo by Liv Lyons)
Ending Spring positively
Ray’s last outing of the Spring was a five inning, two hits, one run performance against the Arizona Diamondbacks that saw him strikeout five batters. That outing followed up one that witnessed him fan nine batters, against the starters of the Chicago White Sox. He heated up as the Spring progressed, allowing only two runs over five outings. His final outing, against Arizona, had him grunting like baseball fans have come to know. Robbie was ready to leave Peoria and get to the games that counted.
“Feeling good about where I’m at. Feel like today getting five innings up and down, you know, kind of getting that under my belt. I feel like last time I got the pitch count up, and this time getting up and downs. It’s kind of the perfect scenario with one start going in.”
Robbie Ray in his final outing of the Spring, against the Arizona Diamondbacks (Photo by Liv Lyons)
Using Peoria outings to improve
While there are final scores and stats after the end of Spring Training games, they aren’t the main reason why teams show up to their respective leagues (Cactus or Grapefruit) at all. The main thing to always pay attention to during Spring Training is the different storylines of players looking to improve in various ways, which includes Ray. Ray was working on a split-fingered fastball this offseason as well, like rotation-mate Logan Gilbert, and is happy with the progress that he made with it.
“I think the biggest thing for me is just kind of throwing it like my fastball. Same arm slot and everything. Not trying to manipulate it. I feel like sometimes I get on the side of it, and that’s when it gets kind of I’m not really looking for the horizontal movement. I’m trying to get it to go straight down because I feel like that plays best off of my fastball. So today, that’s kind of what I was just trying to do. I wasn’t really concerned with if it was going towards the right handed batter or away from them, like, essentially backing up, but I just wanted it to go straight down, and I felt like today I was able to do that.”
Robbie Ray’s 2022 season through pictures (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Looking towards the future
The ideas that Ray had a bad year or a down season are exaggerated. In many regards, his statistics from 2022 are similar to those of 2021, when he won the Cy Young as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays. As the second member of the rotation, following Luis Castillo is a tall task but Ray is more than capable of handling it and forming an impressive one-two punch at the top of their five-man group. Ray was able to close out the Spring in a positive way, dominating and working strikeouts just like we expected from him after signing a five-year deal with the Mariners in the 2021-22 offseason.