The Tampa Bay Rays are in an enviable position as they navigate their way through the Grapefruit Season toward opening day. That is, they have six extremely capable healthy starting pitchers with only five spots available. If that holds, the name most often discussed as trade or going to the bullpen is Zack Littell.

There are some non-performance reasons for this. In terms of a trade, he is a free agent at the end of the 2025 season. In terms of switching to the bullpen, he has done it before as 155 of his 202 career appearances have come in a relief role.

Every starting rotation needs a guy that is dependable, can deliver innings, and be effective. In 2024 Littell fit the bill in every category. He led the team in starts with 29, he led in innings with 156.1, and he was effective (8-10, 3.63 ERA, 110 ERA+).

With that said, it’s not often that the praise is heaped on Littell and a chorus of “extend him now” isn’t draped across the landscape of social media.

Littell is a a blue collar pitcher on the mound. He gets results without the flash of high-octane hurlers Shane McClanahan, Taj Bradley, Ryan Pepiot, Drew Rasmussen, and Shane Baz.

Over his last nine starts last season Littell seemed to lay a stake to a spot in the Rays rotation for 2025. In those starts he worked to a 5-3 mark with a 1.82 ERA (10ER/49.1IP) while striking out 41 batters and walking 10.

As the Rays move toward opening day, the hope is that Kevin Cash, Erik Neander, and company will have a tough decision to make regarding who are the starting five. With the fragility of starting pitchers, when you have one that is durable, consistent, and effective it may be wise to consider those three variables when making the decision.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Nikita Kucherov had two assists and the streaking Tampa Bay Lightning beat Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers 4-1 on Tuesday night.

The Lightning posted their sixth consecutive win and improved to 7-0-1 in the past eight games overall.

Brandon Hagel, Nick Paul, Mikey Eyssimont and Victor Hedman scored for Tampa Bay, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 23 saves.

Draisaitl scored his NHL-best 43rd goal for the Oilers, who have lost four consecutive games. Stuart Skinner stopped 33 shots.

Draisaitl opened the scoring with a power-play goal 11:53 into the first period, but Eyssimont answered 1:18 later.

Hagel and Hedman scored in the second, and Paul’s 18th goal made it 4-1 at 7:23 of the third period.

Takeaways

Oilers: Edmonton has been outscored 17-7 in the three games coming out of the 4 Nations Face-Off break.

Lightning: Tampa Bay scored its first 5-on-3 power-play goal of the season. The Lightning improved to 9-1-1 at home since Jan. 1.

Key moment

Hagel moved up the boards and scored on a backhanded wraparound to give Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead 29 seconds into the second.

Key stat

Tampa Bay won its 19th consecutive game with the lead entering the third period and improved to 26-1-1 when leading after two periods.

Up next

On Thursday, Edmonton is at Florida and Tampa Bay hosts Calgary.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

The regular season titles in the four major conferences will come down to the final week of the season as league play wraps up this weekend.

Despite its loss to N.C. State on Sunday, Notre Dame still holds a one-game lead on the Wolfpack in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Texas and South Carolina are tied with one loss apiece in the Southeastern Conference. Baylor holds a half-game lead on TCU in the Big 12 and UCLA and USC are tied in the Big Ten.

The Big Ten and Big 12 champions should be decided this weekend in a pair of matchups between the top teams. Baylor hosts TCU while USC visits UCLA.

The Irish have two home games this week against Florida State and Louisville, who both re-entered the Top 25 this week at No. 24 and 25, respectively. N.C. State has an easier time with a home game against Wake Forest and a visit to SMU.

Texas routed Georgia on Monday night and will visit Mississippi State before hosting Florida on Sunday. South Carolina visits Mississippi before hosting Kentucky.

All the teams in contention are not only trying to win their conferences, but also secure better seeds for the NCAA Tournament. The selection committee will do its second reveal on Thursday night.

Rotating No. 1s

For the third consecutive week there was a different No. 1 in the AP poll. Texas became the fourth school to hold the top spot this year, marking the sixth time that’s happened in the history of the poll. There’s never been five different schools at No. 1 in the same season since the poll began in 1976-77.

Home away from home

No. 8 North Carolina is 9-0 on the road this season, the only team in Division I basketball that hasn’t lost a true road game. The Tar Heels visit Duke on Thursday trying to finish off the season perfect in that stat.

Climbing the charts

UConn star guard Paige Bueckers moved into sixth on the Huskies’ career scoring list passing Kerry Bascom, Nykesha Sales and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis in the team’s victory over Butler. Bueckers now has 2,189 and next up on the list is Katie Lou Samuelson with 2,342.

NET ratings

The NCAA’s weekly NET rankings — one of the tools the selection committee uses to determine the NCAA Tournament bracket — remained constant with the top 10 staying the same. UConn was No. 1 followed by South Carolina, Texas, Notre Dame and UCLA. After the Huskies, the next school outside of the four major conferences in the ratings was Creighton at 31.

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