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Who is Baz? Well, the 6-foot-3 right-hander and former first-round pick in the 2017 MLB draft pitches for the Tampa Bay Rays. He’s part of the five-man rotation that, so far this season, has found upper-level success with lower levels of swing-and-miss in this strikeout-driven era in the major leagues.

The Rays rotation, which boasts five starters who’ve made at least 14 starts, don’t have a single starter with a strikeout rate higher than 24%. By comparison, the Houston Astros rotation features four starters (at least nine starts) with a strikeout rate of 24% or higher.

If you haven’t already connected the dots yourself, the Rays and their rotation are an example of a team that trades punches with baseball’s big boys despite a similar type of rotation as the Cardinals this season.

The Rays’ success lets us all know that strikeout-heavy starters, while a definite benefit, aren’t required to compete. At least not required as much as strikeout “stuff� late in games.

The Rays’ example also shows us that finding reliable relief pitchers with the ability to attack the zone with swing-and-miss stuff might be one of the most important things the Cardinals do this season.

The Cardinals’ last homestand, particularly the series against the Toronto Blue Jays, underscored the heavy reliance on pitch-to-contact starters such as Andre Pallante, Miles Mikolas and Matthew Liberatore.

The Blue Jays collected 40 hits on that three-game sweep of the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Each time a line drive off the bat of a Blue Jays hitter smacked a patch of green grass or a ground ball with eyes found its way through the Cardinals infield defense, the drumbeat got louder. The importance of swing-and-miss stuff seemingly grew with each hit.

Any astute baseball follower knows, the most surefire way for a pitcher to work around having men on base is via strikeouts.

When the ball isn’t put in play because of strikeouts, that also means you’re collecting outs, not giving up hits and runners aren’t advancing or scoring.

When the opposition puts the bat on the ball, the likelihood of hits, productive outs and fielding misplays goes up.

You only need recall the fourth inning in Game 1 of Thursday’s doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox.

Cardinals starter Erick Fedde got within an out of escaping the inning with a one-run lead intact. His strikeout of Ryan Noda put him in that position. However, Josh Rojas whacked a ball back up the middle that shortstop Masyn Winn gloved on the outfield grass, but his low throw allowed Rojas to reach base, the tying run to score and extended the inning.

Strikeouts take that sort of thing off the table.

Of the Cardinals starting pitchers, only Sonny Gray has logged better than a strikeout per inning this season (9.6 per nine innings). His strikeout rate of 26.1% puts him well ahead of Liberatore (20.1%) for the lead. Steven Matz actually showed the most swing-and-miss ability in his two starts, but he’s since shifted to a jack-of-all-trades role out of the bullpen.

Which brings us back to the Rays and their contact-heavy starting rotation, who entered Thursday in second place in the American League East and the fourth-best record in the AL.

All the Rays have done, since the start of May, has been go 27-17 with a starting staff that doesn’t miss bats.

The Rays also led the majors in innings pitched by their rotation (418 2/3) while the Cardinals ranked seventh (401 2/3 in one fewer game).

Rays starters ranked among the bottom third (23rd overall) in the majors in strikeouts per nine innings (7.70), a little bit ahead of the Cardinals (27th, 7.10), but that hasn’t sunk them.

With pitchers like Drew Rasmussen (50% ground-ball rate), Ryan Pepiot, Taj Bradley, Zack Littell and Baz, the Rays don’t have an All-Star selection between the five of them. They don’t have a household name, no Paul Skenes. Yet their staff has allowed the seventh-fewest runs in the big leagues this season.

That success comes in no small part because the Rays have put together one of the stingiest bullpens in the big leagues (3.02 ERA, second-best in MLB). The Rays don’t have the nastiest bullpen corps as far as racking up strikeouts — they’re ranked 15th in strikeouts per nine — but they’ve been considerably better than the 30th-ranked Cardinals.

What’s more, none of the Cardinals’ three biggest strikeout threats out of the bullpen — Phil Maton (11.6 strikeouts per nine), Ryan Helsley (10.8) and Matz (7.8) — are under contract past this season.

Not only may the Cardinals have to replace all of them after this season, but they could all also be trade candidates in a little more than a month.

Sorting through the viability of relievers such as Riley O’Brien, Gordon Graceffo, Chris Roycroft, Matt Svanson, Andre Granillo, Roddery Munoz and Ryan Fernandez could become paramount by the end of this season. Finding out what they have in that regard would fit with the theme of this season.

The Rays are proving that a cadre of pitch-to-contact starters, the type the Cardinals traditionally have leaned on in the past, can still anchor a playoff-caliber team. But pairing that with a lack of swing-and-miss from the bullpen isn’t a viable formula.