Rays to start 3 straight relievers vs. O's; Romo gets ball Friday, Sunday

The Tampa Bay Rays will have relief pitchers start all three games of their upcoming series against the Baltimore Orioles, with veteran right-hander Sergio Romo - who started successive games last weekend - getting the ball Friday and Sunday at Tropicana Field, per Daniel Kramer of MLB.com.

Ryne Stanek, who's yet to start a game in the big leagues since debuting with the Rays last year, will start Saturday's matinee.

The Rays first tinkered with using a designated "opener" last weekend in Anaheim - "play(ing) the matchup game," as manager Kevin Cash put it - by sending out Romo, who had never started before, to face the overwhelmingly right-handed top of the Los Angeles Angels' order.

The experiment worked so well - Romo struck out the side in the first inning - that Cash decided to start him again the following day. Again, he delivered, pitching around a walk in a scoreless first. However, the strategy was divisive.

"It was weird," Angels third baseman Zack Cozart told Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic. "It's bad for baseball, in my opinion ... It's spring training, that's the best way to explain it."

Romo felt differently.

"It's one of those things that came out of left field," he told Joseph D'Hippolito of the Sporting News. "But I think it was pretty cool. It's cool for the game from a strategic side."