ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 After a mostly productive spring training, the Tampa Bay Rays are limping into the start of the regular season.<\/p>\n
Injuries have hampered the team\u2019s infield and pitching staff the last couple of weeks, impacting the starting lineup going into Thursday\u2019s season-opening game at St. Louis.<\/p>\n
Top prospect Carson Williams moves into the starting shortstop role due to Taylor Walls starting the season on the injured list because of his right oblique.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, second baseman Gavin Lux\u2019s debut with the Tampa Bay Rays is going to have to wait.<\/p>\n
The club is placing the veteran infielder on injured reserve with right shoulder pain. The move means Richie Palacios will make the opening day roster for Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
Now the pitching staff.<\/p>\n
Starter\u00a0Ryan Pepiot\u00a0is headed to the injured list with right hip inflammation. Joe Boyle will step in top that starting slot. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Pepiot, who led the Rays with 167-plus innings pitched last year, is not expected to be out longer than the 15-day IL stint, said Rays manager Kevin Cash.<\/p>\n
Also, Nick Martinez will see his first start for the Rays pushed back a few days due to a hamstring issue.<\/p>\n
The opening day lineup likely will be Yandy Diaz leading off at DH, followed by Jonathan Aranda (1B), Junior Caminero (3B), Cedric Mullins (CF), Palacios (2B), Johnny DeLuca (RF), Chandler Simpson (LF), Nick Fortes (C) and Williams (SS).<\/p>\n
Drew Rasmussen will pitch on Thursday, followed by Boyle and Steven Matz.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay opens the season with a 3-game series at St. Louis, followed by three at Milwaukee and three at Minnesota. The Rays open their home slate April 6 back at Tropicana Field against the Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 After a mostly productive spring training, the Tampa Bay Rays are limping into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[556,5,182,555,4,169,184,557,297,562,185,295,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":["post-642808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-app-sports","tag-baseball","tag-florida","tag-florida-sports","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-professional-baseball","tag-rays","tag-spectrum-news-staff","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116290608936141411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}