Rays nearing take care of reliever Maton (source)

The Rays are on the verge of adding a vital weapon to their bullpen, one who’s battle-tested in the month of October.

The Rays are finalizing a take care of free-agent reliever Phil Matona source has urged MLB.com’s Designate Feinsand. The Rays derive now not commented on the deal.

The beautiful-handed Maton had a 3.00 ERA in 68 appearances for the Astros in 2023 with a 74-to-25 strikeout-to-stroll ratio.

The biggest allotment of Houston’s bullpen the closing three seasons, Maton used to be allotment of the bridge to nearer Ryan Pressly.

It stays to be considered precisely how Maton will match actual into a Tampa Bay bullpen that capabilities Pete Fairbanks, who saved 25 video games closing season. The Rays are in total jubilant giving a couple of pitchers save opportunities and Maton has the flexibility and music file to hitch that combine.

Now not handiest has the 30-one year-frail beautiful-hander posted a 3.67 ERA in 162 relief appearances for Houston in the peculiar season, Maton has also allowed beautiful one flee in 18 postseason outings, all whereas averaging about 10 strikeouts per 9 innings. He used to be particularly efficient in 2023, combining high swing-and-leave out, strikeout and gallop charges with very low exit velocities and keen-hit charges allowed.

The first to Maton’s success used to be his pair of breaking balls: a high-accelerate curveball that averaged an elite 3,156 rpm, and a “sweeper” slider that averaged 19 inches of horizontal crash. These two pitches accounted for on the self-discipline of two-thirds of Maton’s entire usage, and for the first time, his curveball, now not his fastball, used to be his most-ragged pitch.

Maton will relief derive the void left by Robert Stephenson, who honest now not too long ago signed with the Angels.

In 2023, the Tampa Bay bullpen ranked 2d in MLB with a 1.19 WHIP, tied for 2d with a .223 opponents’ batting average and carried out fourth in strikeouts (657).

Jason Adam, Colin Poche and Shawn Armstrong will be a part of Fairbanks and Maton as relievers that manager Kevin Cash will investigate cross-take a look at to for prime-leverage outs.

Maton, who will flip 31 next month, used to be picked in the 20th spherical of the 2015 MLB Draft by the Padres. He has pitched in 344 video games over seven Critical League seasons with the Padres, Guardians and Astros. He pitched in 12 video games at some level of the 2021 postseason when Houston obtained the ALCS but fell to the Braves in the World Series.