The tightest pants in baseball made it back to the mound just under 15 months removed from his 2023 Tommy John surgery, but lasted just seven starts until a hamstring injury in late August shelved him for the rest of the season. Even in those 30 innings, Ray once again showed the upside of rostering him as well as the downside of rostering him. He struck out 43 batters in 30.2 innings, but also walked 15 around 6 homers which pushed his ERA to 4.70 despite a respectul 1.14 WHIP. Even with all the rust from the long layoff, Rays stuff was as good if not better results wise than his Cy Young-winning season. His fastball and slider had near equivalent whiff rates to his 2021 outcomes while the league hit .167 and .148 respectively off the fastball and slider last season. The third pitch he continues to pursue, a knuckle curve, is all over the place for results and most of them have been poor to date. Ray may not be able to resume the 190+ inning workload he was shouldering pre-surgery, but the risk/reward here is rather inticing as long as you understand homers will always be a problem for him. Read Past Outlooks