Another brilliant start by Rays right-hander Drew Rasmussen carried the Rays to victory in a decisive Game 5 in Cleveland that put the Rays in the driver’s seat as the series comes home to Tampa. The Guardians now face back-to-back elimination games, and while they should have ace Gavin Williams going on short rest on Tuesday, if they get there, the Guardians will be trying to piece together another bullpen game out of depth starters and their heavily taxed relief corps just to survive on Monday.
Tasked with taking them down will be right-hander Freddy Peralta, and it would be pretty fitting if it was Peralta carrying the Rays into a World Series matchup against the club he’s spent most of his career with, the Milwaukee Brewers. Peralta signed a free agent deal with the Mets last offseason, only to be moved to Tampa at the deadline after a rough first half. As they do, the Rays helped him clean up his mechanics and get back to form, producing a pretty strong finish to the season in September. Even so, Peralta is not fully back to being the strikeout artist he’s been his whole career. The Rays are unlikely to get seven innings of zero or one-run ball out of him against a very scrappy and desperate Guardians lineup.
RHP Shawn Armstrong (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. RHP Freddy Peralta (1-0, 0.79 ERA) at Tropicana Field, 8:08 p.m. ET on TBS.
