PORT CHARLOTTE, FLA. – Rube Walker was the pitching coach for the New York Mets in the late 1960s, and he was convinced there were only so many pitches in an arm. The Mets had a precocious collection of young starters, and Walker instituted a five-man rotation to protect those marvelous assets.
The expansion franchise that had been glorified for its amazin' futility won the 1969 World Series as the Miracle Mets, and Walker's five-man rotation went from a radical idea to a staple of pitching that has lasted for five decades.
The Tampa Bay Rays had been making news in the first couple of weeks of this spring training for lost free agents and cost-cutting trades, and then Marc Topkin from the Tampa Bay Times reported this:
The four-man rotation with which the Rays would start the season was not merely intended for the early weeks, when there are more off days. Even the Twins have signed on to that strategy for April.
The Rays were going to run with the four-man, five-day rotation as far into the schedule as feasible, hopefully from the end of March to September. This was reported on Wednesday and it became such a big talker that Rays manager Kevin Cash was already worn out by the subject on Friday morning.
Cash does a quick media session before batting practice on the day of an exhibition game, and I said:
"Could you go through the four-man, five-day rotation strategy again?"
Cash said, "Really?" and then he repeated that the Rays would have four starters taking a turn in all five-day segments of the schedule. And, when there wasn't an off day to make this work smoothly, four other pitchers with starting experience would be part of the eight-man bullpen and take care of the early innings of the fifth-day games.