The playoff format in baseball is quite unforgiving, isn’t it? In a season where you play 162 games, the Yankees ended a team’s season in about 28 hours last week, but now they stare down the barrel of theirs being in serious danger if they happen to lose consecutive games at Tropicana Field to the Rays, a usual House of Horrors for them.
While the saying goes, “A series doesn’t start until the home team loses”, simple math will tell you that the team without home-field advantage can’t exactly rely
on that (for obvious reasons). So while the Rays winning tonight would simply mean holding serve, that doesn’t quite work in a five-game series. In the 30-plus years of the Division Series, only eight teams have ever come back from 0-2 — including the 2001 and 2017 Yankees. But after an unsuccessful comeback last year, the 2026 Yanks certainly don’t want to have to try and be the ninth.
Fortunately, they have their ace on the bump to try and send the series to the Bronx tied. Cam Schlittler will unanimously win AL Cy Young and finish top five in MVP voting, but his real brilliance is shown in October. Two of his three career postseason starts have been scoreless brilliance against Boston, but he did also pitch into the seventh in Game 4 of the ALDS last year against a Blue Jays team that provided a similarly pesky challenge to this Rays team.
In the regular season against the Rays, it was a mixed bag. Schlittler struck out eight, but allowed three runs in five innings in a loss on April 12th at Tropicana Field, but he came back to throw eight innings of one-run ball in early July in one of his best starts of the season. The third and final meeting was limited to just three frames to manage his pitch count ahead of the postseason, but the Rays made him throw 70 pitches in that abbreviated outing in a meaningless late September start. Expect them to try to grind him out of the game as they did that day.
After getting absolutely dominated by Drew Rasmussen on Saturday, the Yankees hope their bats will fare better against star deadline acquisition Freddy Peralta, the former longtime Brewer who was saved from a disastrous season in Queens at the Trade Deadline. The pending free agent has been much better since the trade, pitching to a 3.22 ERA (131 ERA+) and 3.93 FIP in 55.1 innings, albeit with just 43 strikeouts. He closed the regular season by allowing just three runs in his last 34 innings to win AL Pitcher of the Month honors. For the optimists, a look under the hood shows he’s due for regression. For the pessimists, his stuff plays well at the Trop.
What’s changed with Peralta since the trade? He’s throwing considerably more changeups, especially against right-handed pitching, and will lean on that and his mid-90s four-seamer tonight, while mixing in a sweeper and a curveball. As you might expect, his fastball has gotten much more ride and has added a tick since getting to play in the Trop, so expect a much different pitcher than the one you may have seen wearing blue and orange. He’s only made two career starts against the Yankees: Opening Day 2025 with Milwaukee, and allowing three runs in five innings against them in May 2026.
It’s the exact same lineup for the Yankees, and I can’t really blame them. The options on the bench aren’t great for a tough righty like Peralta, and it was the same unit that crushed the Red Sox in Game 2 last Wednesday. The Rays are doing the same despite only scoring one run on Saturday, batting the exact same nine that usually have success against right-handed pitching.
How to Watch:
Location: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, FL
First Pitch: 8:00 p.m. EDT
TV broadcast: TBS, TruTV, Univision
Radio broadcast: WFAN 660/101.9 FM, WADO 1280 (NYY), WDAE 95.7 FM, WQBN/1300AM (TB) | ESPN Radio (National)
Online Stream: HBO Max
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