For the first time in nearly twenty years, the League Championship series is back at Tropicana Field.
Over the past two decades, the Tampa Bay Rays have been one of the best franchises in all of baseball. Since the start of the 2008 season, the Rays have the 3rd highest winning percentage in the game and have been to the playoffs 10 times. They have won two pennants, falling just short of winning the World Series both times.
There have been two Cy Youngs (Blake Snell and David Price), four Rookie of
the Year winners (Randy Arozarena, Wil Myers, Jeremy Hellickson, and Evan Longoria), and numberous Silver Sluggers and Gold Glovers as well Managers of the Year (Joe Maddon and Kevin Cash both winning two).
Factually speaking, this is the team’s third time making it past the Division Series but the 2020 season muddles things as it was only 60 games and each postseason game past the Wild Card rounds were moved to a central locations to try and keep the players safe from COVID (well sort of safe, thanks Justin Turner). The Rays defeated the Houston Astros in seven games in San Diego to move onto the World Series and face the Los Angeles Dodgers in Texas.
So with all their successes, it’s crazy that the Rays will be just playing in their second ALCS at Tropicana Field.
Cleveland’s pitching staff was taxed during their five game series against the Chicago White Sox but the Guardians were able to win out in the end. It was a bittersweet situation for Cleveland during the final two games of the ALDS as they were able to start those games with their two best starting pitchers but that leaves them at a disadvantage with the bottom end of their rotation going against the Rays ace.
So on Monday night at Tropicana Field, instead of Gavin Williams or Parker Messick taking the mound, Cleveland will instead call upon 31-year old southpaw, Foster Griffin.
It’s been a whirlwind of a career for Griffin as he was originally a first round draft pick, selected at 28th overall by the Kansas City Royals way back in 2014 ranking as one of the top high school arms in the country. He and an up-and-down prospectdom with some years appearing as an ace and others as a neverwill. Eventually, the Royals gave Griffin a cameo in the big leagues as a reliever but ultimately he would only toss 6 innings for his drafting team before being traded to the Blue Jays ahead of the 2022 deadline; Griffin would only throw two innings for Toronto and was released in November.
Following his release, Griffin ventured overseas and pitched for the Yomiuri Giants from 2023 through 2025 and performed quite well, regaining his status as a starting pitcher. Over those three seasons, Griffin compiled a 2.57 ERA spread across 315.2 IP.
The Washington Nationals signed Griffin to a one year, $5.5M deal ahead of the 2026 campaign and the changes Griffin made to achieve success in Japan easily transferred state side as he excelled with Washington. Over the first several months of the season, Griffin compiled a 3.06 ERA | 4.10 FUP with a 22.1 K% & 5.7 BB% over 129.1 IP. In need of pitching for their playoff aspirations, that Guardians acquired Grffin from the Nationals at the trade deadline.
The results for Griffin have been inconsistent since landing in Cleveland. There are a couple of outings that heavily skew his 5.19 ERA and his 3.54 FIP suggests that he has been unlucky. Griffin made 9 regular season starts for Cleveland and allowed 3 runs or less in seven of them but also only compelted six innings, three times.
Going to the mound for the Rays in game one will be Drew Rasmussen.
The 31-year old hurler was nearly perfect the last time he toed the rubber for the Rays back on Saturday, October 3rd, during the first game of the ALDS against the Yankees. Rasmussen delivered eight innings of dominance against New York, striking out ten hitters and walking just two; he was just four outs away from a no-hitter when Austin Wells drilled a ball into the right field corner. This looked like a possible turning point in a 1-0 game, but a questionable baserunning decision and elite Rays defense resulted in Wells being thrown at third to record the final out of Rasmussen’s brilliant 8 inning outing.
According to Baseball-Reference’s GameScore (developed by Bill James), this start was the best of Rasmussen’s career as he registered an 88 GameScore. Rasmussen’s previous high (85) was an outing from earlier this season in which he struck out 13, allowing just two hits over 7 scoreless innings against Boston. It was easily the best postseason performance from a Rays starting pitcher, surpassing Matt Moore’s (77) stellar postseason debut in 2011 and Matt Garza’s (75) 2008 ALCS game 7 performance.
The Tampa Bay Rays managed to sweep the New York Yankees in the ALDS despite receiving a less than stellar performance from their offense. As a whole, the offense hit .208/.255/.344 with a .599 OPS which is the second lowest all-time for a team that swept their opponent in the LDS. However, they did have to face one of the toughest pitching staffs in all of baseball so that needs to be taken into consideration as the Yankees led the league in ERA.
The game begins tonight at 8pm with Rays Hall of Famer Carl Crawford tossing out the ceremonial first pitch.
