Fantasy Baseball: 5 Pitchers to Stream in Week 9

Ryan Yarbrough, Tampa Bay Rays

Start: May 30th at Oakland Athletics
ESPN percentage owned: 7.9%

The Tampa Bay Rays' unconventional "opener" strategy has tickled baseball geeks silly over the past two weeks, with the always-cutting-edge Rays "starting" reliever Sergio Romo to flamethrow the first third of the opposing batting order before handing the ball over to a traditional starter. But it's really the work of rookie Ryan Yarbrough has made Tampa's gambit look inspired, with the first-year lefty logging 18.1 frames of 1.49-ERA ball with 16 punchouts during what shows up in the box score as long relief appearances.

If we follow the traditional five-day cycle, Yarbrough projects to be on the hill Wednesday against the Athletics, and whether he takes the ball in the first inning or the second, he's throwing against an injured Oakland squad that has been in an offensive free fall. The Athletics' sticks have been particularly muted against lefties, scraping by on a .141 team isolated slugging against southpaws over the last month, a mark that dips all the way down to .077 at the hitter-hostile Oakland Alameda Coliseum.

The Rays' experimental approach should be of particular interest in deep rotisserie leagues with pitcher start limits: Yarbrough has the potential to provide significant ratio help, bulk strikeouts, and a good chance at a win -- all without taxing your starts allotment.