Guardians vs. Rays
Many were wondering why the Rays and Guardians got the primetime spotlight on Monday over the Dodgers vs. Brewers game, but it was so that both teams could get to the West Coast at a reasonable hour. For the Brewers, that was 11:49 p.m. PT, when they landed at LAX after taking a 2-0 series lead. Meanwhile, down in Florida, the Guardians shocked the Rays to take a 1-0 series lead with six runs over the final three innings. Stephen Vogt and his staff cobbled that gameplan together. Tonight, they send out one of their two aces in search of a commanding 2-0 series lead.
Guardians vs. Rays (-132, 7) Prediction
8 p.m. ET
As the only game in action for today, Cleveland and Tampa have that primetime spotlight once again from St. Petersburg. The Guardians packed their hitting shoes for the trip to the Sunshine State, racking up seven runs on 14 hits, including solo homers from Chase DeLauter and Patrick Bailey. The Yankees had five runs on 12 hits in three games against the Rays, just in case you needed a reminder of how crazy and high-variance baseball can be.
Because Cade Smith polished off the ninth inning on just six pitches, we didn’t see Junior Caminero, who was due up fifth in the inning. Caminero and LF Johnny DeLuca collided on a ball in foul territory down the line and Caminero was down for quite a while, grabbing at his pectoral/shoulder area. After the game, manager Kevin Cash downplayed the incident, saying that Caminero simply had the wind knocked out of him. I’ll be curious to see how he looks tonight, given that he’s far and away Tampa’s biggest power threat and best hitter.
Parker Messick won’t shed any tears if Caminero does have lingering effects from the collision. He gets the start here, which will be his third of the postseason. He’s only lasted 6.2 innings in his two starts with four runs allowed on six hits, but he has struck out 11 of 31 batters faced. That said, he’s also walked six of them. This is a guy who only walked 49 batters over 186.1 innings in the regular season, but it is possible that the big innings bump has taken a bit of a toll on him. He’s approaching 200 innings for the season after throwing less than 140 each of the previous two seasons.
Messick had 14 Whiffs in his first start against the White Sox, but he also allowed seven hard-hit balls and an average exit velocity of 99.2 mph. He had 12 Whiffs over just 2.1 innings in his second start, as his Chase Rate dipped to 26% and he pitched from behind in the count too much. He did allow just a 79.8 mph average exit velocity on just four batted balls. He walked four batters in that October 8 effort.
This is a really interesting start for him. He’s primarily a fastball/changeup guy and the Rays are a very aggressive lineup. They don’t walk, but they don’t strike out either, so we’re likely to see a lot of balls in play off of him. In that last start, 52 of his 65 pitches were four-seamers/changeups and 60 of 87 pitches in his first start were classified that way. The other wrinkle here is that Messick’s personal catcher has been Austin Hedges, but this game doesn’t set up well for using him. Patrick Bailey is a switch hitter and lines up better with the right-handed Freddy Peralta than Hedges does. Plus, Bailey’s having a solid postseason. Bailey did not catch a single one of Messick’s regular-season starts. If Hedges does start, it’s a negative for Cleveland’s lineup.
The Guardians’ philosophy on relievers is that it isn’t really about days of usage, it’s about pitch count over a given period of time. He would love to avoid Hunter Gaddis, Erik Sabrowski, and Cade Smith if he can help it, but the chance to go up 2-0 with an off day tomorrow is worth it and I think he will continue to leverage those guys aggressively. That said, sneaking innings from Daniel Espino and Joey Cantillo was huge yesterday, as Smith only needed six pitches and Gaddis only needed 13.
Righties only batted .206/.261/.338 against Messick with a .263 wOBA. His K% (26.6%) was higher against them than against lefties (23.9%), a testament to how good his changeup is. He limited righties to a 34.7% Hard Hit% and a 5.3% Barrel%. His Hard Hit% and Barrel% both trended up significantly in September and I do worry a little bit about fatigue.
Peralta bobbed and weaved through 4.2 innings in his start against the Yankees in the ALDS. He allowed a solo homer and two other hits, but only struck out three and walked one over the 18 batters that he faced. He was pulled after just 66 pitches, but he did have 12 Whiffs and he, too, was almost all fastballs and changeups. In fact, 63 of his 66 pitches were 4S/CH, so both pitchers will be looking to attack in the same fashion here.
It took some time for Peralta to settle in with the Rays. He allowed 17 runs over his first four starts and three runs total over his final six regular-season starts. He wasn’t a big strikeout guy with just 43 in 55.1 innings, but he had just a 35% Hard Hit% and a 7.0% Barrel%. If we cut out his first four starts, he allowed a 30.4% HH% and a 3.3% Barrel% over his final six starts across 92 batted ball events.
I also wrote about this prior to his start against the Yankees in Game 2, but the Rays really focused on improving his numbers against lefties. For the season as a whole, Peralta allowed a .254/.318/.439 slash to lefties, who hit 17 of the 23 homers he allowed. With the Rays, though, he allowed a .217/.280/.342 slash and a .277 wOBA to lefties. Over those final six regular-season starts, he allowed a .164/.253/.224 slash with a .225 wOBA.
The Guardians are going to do what they always do and send out lefties against a right-handed starter. Peralta’s changeup usage went from 20.8% with the Mets to 29.7% with the Rays. The Guardians were one of the league’s worst offenses against changeups. I was actually very surprised to see only 12 changeups from Rasmussen. The Rays bullpen also had the highest rate of changeups at 17.9%, so despite last night’s poor effort, I think we’ll see better returns through the rest of the series. That’s especially because closer Bryan Baker, who wasn’t used, had a 43.8% CH%.
Long story short, I like Under 7 here. Messick and Peralta are soft contact merchants, who are both plenty capable of cutting down the platoon advantage with their pitch usage. Relievers should be more effective early in series before hitters start to see them a lot and pick up their arm slots and tendencies. I also do believe that some of the Rays relievers were rusty. The guys who struggled could definitely improve.
Pick: Under 7 (-122)
