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With the last nine games meaningless in terms of playoff seeding I’m not going to go into as much detail on the last two opponents. I expect Tito will be resting some of his regulars and not pushing his starters to go too far. He might go with a six-man rotation. We’ll just have to see how he plays it.
Tampa is in 3rd place in the East and currently in the second wild card position, two games behind Toronto and a half-game ahead of Seattle. They are 4.5 games ahead of fourth place Baltimore so it looks like they will make the playoffs, the question is what seed.
The Guardians took 2 of 3 from the Rays in Tampa at the end of July, but this will be different. The Rays need wins to maintain or improve their playoff position while the Guardians are locked into the #3 seed.
The Rays are staggering to the finish, having lost 11 of their last 17. They have been very good at home (51-30) and much worse on the road (33-39). This might be a good team to play in the first round with all the games in Cleveland.
Christian Betancourt and Yandy Diaz are hot, hitting .309 and .321 in September. Wander Franco (.328) and Randy Arozarena (.298) are also swinging hot bats in September. But as a team they’re averaging a modest 3.9 runs per game this month. They have hit 15 home runs in 24 games.
Betancourt is 10-for-22 against Cleveland this year (.455) with three home runs and six RBI’s.
Corey Kluber, now 36, goes against Shane Bieber tonight. Kluber is 10-9, 4.30 on the season and is coming off a 7-inning, 1-run game against Houston. He faced the G’s on July 30 and allowed four runs in six innings.
Kluber’s road ERA is 5.05; he’s been better at home. He’s been better with nobody on (.241) than with runners on base (.314) and in scoring position (.348). Jose is 3-for-5 against him with a pair of doubles.
Bieber has allowed just five earned runs in his last four starts so it appears we have the advantage in starting pitching. We also are at home and Tampa is below .500 on the road. We also have tremendous momentum having won 18 of 21 while Tampa has lost 11 of 17. But they need these games and we don’t, so we’ll see how that plays out.
Tampa is in 3rd place in the East and currently in the second wild card position, two games behind Toronto and a half-game ahead of Seattle. They are 4.5 games ahead of fourth place Baltimore so it looks like they will make the playoffs, the question is what seed.
The Guardians took 2 of 3 from the Rays in Tampa at the end of July, but this will be different. The Rays need wins to maintain or improve their playoff position while the Guardians are locked into the #3 seed.
The Rays are staggering to the finish, having lost 11 of their last 17. They have been very good at home (51-30) and much worse on the road (33-39). This might be a good team to play in the first round with all the games in Cleveland.
Christian Betancourt and Yandy Diaz are hot, hitting .309 and .321 in September. Wander Franco (.328) and Randy Arozarena (.298) are also swinging hot bats in September. But as a team they’re averaging a modest 3.9 runs per game this month. They have hit 15 home runs in 24 games.
Betancourt is 10-for-22 against Cleveland this year (.455) with three home runs and six RBI’s.
Corey Kluber, now 36, goes against Shane Bieber tonight. Kluber is 10-9, 4.30 on the season and is coming off a 7-inning, 1-run game against Houston. He faced the G’s on July 30 and allowed four runs in six innings.
Kluber’s road ERA is 5.05; he’s been better at home. He’s been better with nobody on (.241) than with runners on base (.314) and in scoring position (.348). Jose is 3-for-5 against him with a pair of doubles.
Bieber has allowed just five earned runs in his last four starts so it appears we have the advantage in starting pitching. We also are at home and Tampa is below .500 on the road. We also have tremendous momentum having won 18 of 21 while Tampa has lost 11 of 17. But they need these games and we don’t, so we’ll see how that plays out.
