After Friday’s disappointing loss to Houston, the Rays will take on the Astros again tonight. Rookie LHP Blake Snell will take the mound for Tampa Bay, opposite of 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel.
Keuchel is the fourth Cy Young Award winner Snell has faced in his 14 big-league starts, previously losing to Corey Kluber, Justin Verlander and David Price.
Rays 8/26/16 Starting Lineup
Forsythe 2B
Kiermaier CF
Longoria 3B
Duffy SS
Beckham 1B
Mahtook LF
Souza RF
Dickerson DH
Wilson C
Snell LHP
Noteworthiness
— INF/OF Nick Franklin will be activated from the seven-day concussion DL Saturday afternoon. After going 3-4 while playing second base and left-field for the Class-A Stone Crabs, Franklin showed that he was ready to the Rays. In doing so, RHP Tyler Sturdevant was optioned back to Triple-A Durham to make room.
— RHP Alex Cobb will make his last rehab start Saturday with the Triple-A Durham Bulls before rejoining the Rays next week against Toronto. This will be the last step in his extended rehab from May 2015 Tommy John elbow surgery.
Over his seven rehab starts, Cobb is 0-3 with a 7.64 ERA. He has not worked more than four innings, and he likely won’t go any deeper Saturday, as he is pitching on four days’ rest. Still, Cobb reportedly feels good even though the results haven’t matched. He’ll return with some specific goals in mind, particularly locating his stuff.
Get some clean innings, go out there and not work so hard, Cobb said. Locate pitches. Have pitch execution in mind and do it, and don’t think about the process that it takes to do it. And just walk off the mound and feel relieved you’re able to get that call back (to the majors).
— You can read about tonight’s pitching matchup in our series preview.