Pull up a seat for a tale of the latest Rays pitcher to arrive from nowhere

ST. PETERSBURG — In the giant warehouse of big-league pitching duels, this one will get shoved in some far corner.

That’s what happens when the crowd is small, the pregame buzz is minimal and one of the combatants is unsung.

And that’s a shame, because this is a story worth hearing.

And Zack Littell is a survivor worth admiring.

Think of it this way:

Mariners ace Luis Castillo is a three-time All-Star, a Cy Young contender and a very rich man with a new 5-year, $108 million contract. Littell, meanwhile, is on his seventh organization, began the year as a 27-year-old reliever pitching for Round Rock in the Pacific Coast League, was sold to the Red Sox in May and was then ignored by 28 other teams before the Rays claimed him when Boston put him on waivers.

And yet, Littell nearly outdueled Castillo in a mid-September start with playoff implications for both teams. Castillo threw six innings of shutout ball for the 1-0 victory, while Littell threw a career-high eight innings while surrendering a lone run on a ground-ball single by the No. 8 hitter.

“I’m in the rotation for one of the top 3 or 4 teams in baseball, playing very meaningful games down the stretch,” Littell said. “If you had told me that at the beginning of the year, I probably would have called you crazy.”

The beauty of the story is that it’s not a fluke. Or, if it is, this fluke has legs.

Since the Rays converted him into a starter in mid-July — at a time when his ERA was 6.05 — Littell has been a revelation. He’s pitched into the sixth inning in six of his last eight starts, and he’s sporting a 3.63 ERA since July 19.

It would be cool if this was part of some grand design by the Rays, but the truth is a little less dramatic. The team did like Littell’s mix of pitches and thought he was worth taking a flier on, but his ascent to a starting pitcher in a pennant race involves a lot of injuries and a little desperation on Tampa Bay’s part.

The Rays had already lost Jeffrey Springs, Drew Rasmussen and Josh Fleming to injuries, and rookie Taj Bradley was going through growing pains when the Rays approached Littell about returning to a starting role for the first time since he was in the minors in 2019.

“It’s a testament to our front office’s ability to recognize guys that can come in here and flourish even though they haven’t in the past,” said pitching coach Kyle Snyder. “Starting pitching is so incredibly difficult to find, to cultivate, to keep healthy. For him to come in and do what he’s done is pretty incredible. His walk rate is probably the lowest of any qualifiers since he’s been starting games. He doesn’t beat himself, he’s built out his repertoire, he’s created more space with two additional pitches.

“I don’t think Zack necessarily surprised us in the pitching group, but it’s been fun to watch the way he’s taken to it. Sometimes you’ve got to make (a starter), and we didn’t have much of a choice, really.”

Littell arrived in Tampa Bay with a four-seam fastball, a cutter and a split-finger pitch that formed a sort of triangle of locations in the strike zone. Adding a sweeper gave him more horizontal movement out of the zone, and a two-seam fastball gave him more arm-side movement.

“I said the other day, there’s a lot of important (contributors) here, and you can probably put him at the top of the list for the innings he’s provided, the way he has just continued to make progress,” manager Kevin Cash said. “We didn’t know how it was going to shake out — you never really do. But the other guys that we (converted to starters), there was more history, more relationships with them. So this one has been a little different, but Zack, to his credit, has just been awesome.”

The backstory is the key to this tale. Littell was an 11th-round draft pick out of Haw River, North Carolina, more than decade ago and never quite found his footing in parts of six major-league seasons with the Twins, Giants and Red Sox.

He was already wondering where his next step would be when he got the surprising call that he had been claimed by the Rays. At that point in the season, Tampa Bay had the best record in baseball, which meant every other team had passed on a chance to claim Littell.

There were no dreams about becoming a starter, no illusions about pitching in a pennant race. Littell was just hoping for a locker and an opportunity.

“For a guy in my position who had been up and down and bounced around, it was more about doing whatever kept me in the major leagues,” Littell said. “Whatever allowed me to have a job is what I wanted to do, and that usually means relieving.

“When I was a minor-league starter and (the Twins) told me I was moving to the bullpen, I kind of dragged my feet for a while. But then once you get to the major leagues, you don’t really care if you’re the bullpen catcher. I just want to be here. So we’ll see where it goes from here.”

John Romano can be reached at jromano@tampabay.com. Follow @romano_tbtimes.

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