IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Starting Sergio:
Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash is one of the more unconventional managers out there. He’s willing to experiment with nearly every part of the game to get the job done. So it shouldn’t be too surprising when he sent career reliever Sergio Romo out to the bump to start a major league game, something that he’s never done before. Romo, 35, had made 588 major league appearances before his first start and only 3 only players had made their first starts later in their careers. Now here’s where it gets weird.

Tampa Bay generally has young pitchers. They eventually get too expensive for the cash strapped base club and they trade them away. Cash in his four years as manager had never started a pitcher over 30 years old until Romo but he liked it so much they he’s about to start Romo in back to back games. He’ll be the first pitcher to start back-to-back games since Zack Greinke did it in July of 2012 when he was ejected early enough in one game that he could effectively pitch in the next.

This is a pretty interesting strategy. It allows Cash to play the match ups he wants for an inning or so and the other team doesn’t know what to plan for.

Grounds for Freedom:These are the types of stories that make baseball trivial and show how important it can be in someone’s life at the same time. 24 years ago, Nevest Coleman was your average guy who worked for the Chicago White Sox grounds crew and happened to stumble into a life altering criminal case. Nevest was accused of committing first-degree murder and spent 23 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit.

This year, DNA evidence exonerated Nevest and set him free. Nevest’s first wish as a free man again was to work for the White Sox again, a wish the Chicago club granted. His second wish was a hamburger and he probably got that too.

Now, Nevest is back to work watching his White Sox play and has a son, daughter and three grandkids to love and catch up with.

Silly Bautista, Braves are for Kids:The Atlanta Braves dumped Jose Bautista only a month after bringing him up from Triple A Gwennet. The six time all star was trying to bolster the Braves line up as a third baseman after being exclusively used at an outfielder from 2011 to 2017 with the Toronto Blue Jays. The 37-year-old Bautista hit only .143 in 12 games and was replaced by yet another youngster from the Braves farm system in 24-year-old Johan Camargo.