One down, three more wins to make the World Series.
The Guardians surprised many people by taking the Drew Rasmussen game. Longtime Guardians fans likely know that Nick Martinez is the one who truly owns Cleveland, but that’s a game three problem. Tonight, the Guardians look to get a good performance from Parker Messick and hit Freddy Peralta.
Let’s talk about some keys to winning tonight:
Get the Signature Messick Moment: Messick may be tiring as he is now at 193 innings-pitched for the year. But,
during the season, he was the sixth best pitcher in MLB. The Guardians need him to be that again, playing in his old stomping grounds growing up, to have a chance at really flipping this series upside down. He will need to navigate the lefty mashing Yandy Diaz and Junior Caminero danger spots in the Rays order effectively to have a good outing tonight.
Get Steven Kwan, Travis Bazzana, Angel Martinez and/or Brayan Rocchio to Have THE Game: Kwan and Bazzana have had some singles and some walks, while Rocchio has yet to do anything notable for the past three games and Martinez got his first playoff hit last night. It feels like any one of these four are always on the verge of breaking out and that could give the Guardians an edge any given night.
Don’t Get Dominated by the Peralta Changeup: Freddy Peralta has pitched much better since joining the Rays (putting up an 0.96 ERA in September) and his changeup has been his most effective out pitch. Changeups give the Guardians trouble but they did just enough to score a couple off another effective changeup artist in Drew Rasmussen last night. The Rays are aggressive and go right after hitters in the zone, so the Guardians were aggressive last night to great effect. They need to continue being aggressive on strikes early in counts and fight off changeups late. The Rays pen, outside Bryan Baker, SHOULD be vulnerable and made more so if the Guardians can, again, force them to use multiple arms from it.
Don’t Get Caught in the Chaos: The Rays are going to lean into hit-and-run, bunting, basestealing and chaos baseball tonight to try to shake up a rolling Guardians’ team. Defense needs to be sound and mental states need to be especially sharp to survive the onslaught approaching.
I would assume Austin Hedges gets the Messick start again, but would not oppose riding the incredible Patrick Bailey heater going on right now. What a fun game last night – let’s do it again. Go Guardians!
