Rays vs. Guardians
Welp, as it turned out, the forecast was right and Major League Baseball forced fans to pay for parking and grab $18 beers and $9 sodas while waiting out a performative rain delay, as Game 4 was never going to be played as scheduled. Moving up Game 3 in the interest of avoiding rain, which wasn’t actually falling during the time in which the game was set to be played, at least made some sense to move in the event that Game 4 would need to be moved.
Game 4 was indeed moved back, so Game 4 is on Saturday and Game 5 is on Sunday and there will be no travel day, but Game 5 will start at 5 p.m. ET to allow the teams to fly to Tampa that night. And also to create a massive gridlock in Downtown Cleveland traffic with the Browns game letting out sometime around 4.
Rays (-114, 7) vs. Guardians Prediction
Saturday, 8 p.m. ET
With the day change, the Guardians are sticking with Shawn Armstrong to lead off a bullpen game. With cold temps and not much carry to the baseball, I think Tanner Bibee could come into play. Without the off day between Games 5 and 6, we’ll see how the managers leverage their bullpens. The Rays are still going to start Nick Martinez.
Tyler Wells and Steven Matz were the only relievers used by Kevin Cash on Thursday, as he pushed Griffin Jax a bit too far and it came back to burn him on the Petey Halpin homer. He should manage this game very aggressively, as Martinez is a reliable starter, but mixing up the looks for Cleveland is also a good idea.
Lefties only batted .236/.266/.393 off of Martinez with a .286 wOBA, whereas righties batted .267/.295/.410 with a .307 wOBA. As good teams do, the Rays looked at Martinez and told him to throw his best pitch more, so that’s what he did after a couple years of lighter changeup usage with the Reds. The Rays bumped his usage back to 25.8%, his highest since 2023 with the Padres. But, the Rays also increased the use of his sinker to help him tunnel the changeup even more effectively. Martinez’s sinker runs 92.4 mph. His changeup is very slow at 78.3 mph. Not surprisingly, he had an 11.2% pop up rate and induced a lot of weak aerial contact with a 32.9% Hard Hit% and a 6.8% Barrel%.
Normally sinkerballers induce more ground balls, but because of Martinez’s arsenal, there were a lot of harmless fly balls over the course of the season. He allowed two runs on five hits in 3.2 innings against the Yankees in the ALDS after posting a 3.10 ERA, 3.97 xERA, and 3.96 FIP during the regular season.
Despite the splits, the Guardians will likely do what got them here and line up lefties against the righty. That becomes even more interesting with the deployment of southpaws Ian Seymour and Cam Booser, plus changeup-heavy right-handers Cole Sulser and closer Bryan Baker.
Cleveland’s pitching plan isn’t nearly as cut and dry. Bibee gave up two runs after lasting just batters in the ALDS against the White Sox. Joey Cantillo worked an inning with two walks in Game 1 of this series. Slade Cecconi worked a very efficient inning in Game 2 with 16 pitches, 12 for strikes. Matt Festa hasn’t pitched at all in the postseason. Shawn Armstrong and Tim Herrin appeared on Tuesday, but not on Thursday. Griffin only threw 63 pitches on Oct. 12 and could be an option here as well. Oft-injured righty Daniel Espino worked back-to-back days just once during the regular season, as he pitched a scoreless inning on Sept. 25. He pitched in Game 1 and then again in Game 3. I’m not sure the Guardians will rush to use him again, even though he only threw 12 pitches. The rainout does give him a chance to pitch in Game 4.
Rays vs. Guardians Prediction
Friday’s game had terrible weather and heavy wind gusts blowing in from left field, so the total was 6.5. Now the total is 7, but still juiced to the Under with a really cold night expected in Cleveland. We’re talking temps around 40 at first pitch. We’re going to see a variety of different arms here. Martinez matches up really well with Cleveland. I don’t know how the Guardians will line this thing up after Armstrong, but Cantillo is expected to be a factor.
From a betting standpoint, this game remains a giant mess. The teams had to get pushed back a day, pitchers who were planning to pitch on Friday are now moving to Saturday. The weather will cut down on offensive upside for both teams, not that either team hits a lot of home runs. My best guess here is just to keep live betting in mind. I lean Under 7, much I did with Under 6.5 for Friday’s game, but that’s not a strong position.
