what the actual freak is going on?
My guess is they told him he wasn't pitching because they didn't think a rainout would actually happen yesterday and had him throwing in the outfield. Then, when everyone mocked the asinine reasoning the manager gave, they tried to leak the idea that it was Stras not wanting to start instead of the team making another asinine decision. Now they're realizing how monumentally stupid it would be to not start him with the gift of the extra day off and are trying to do the PR work to salvage the situation as much as possible.
All of that could have been avoided if they don't put him in the outfield soft tossing before the game yesterday, don't make an announcement either way yesterday for today's game, and then make the obvious call to go with Stras today. This is the vortex of ineptitude created by a manager who has 20+ years of not being able to handle a pitching staff and a front office who can't figure out how rain delays work in their own freaking park a decade after opening it. They're not good at making decisions in real time at any level of the organization.