The American League Championship Series has shrunk to a best-of-three, and Sunday’s Game 5 at Progressive Field will be decided by the two best arms either side has. Tampa Bay’s Drew Rasmussen and Cleveland’s Parker Messick — each a fixture near the top of AL Cy Young voting — meet again in a rematch of the series opener, with first pitch set for 5:08pm ET.
Rasmussen, 16-5 with a 2.67 ERA this season, gets the ball on a full five days’ rest. He was superb in Game 1, holding the Guardians to two runs over six-plus innings with seven strikeouts before the bullpen let a lead slip in a 7-3 defeat. His October line reads 14 innings, two earned runs and 17 strikeouts — a 1.29 ERA — and he blanked the Yankees over eight innings to open the ALDS. “In every single game I try and remember: it’s still just baseball,” he said this week. “I think that’s led to a couple of successful outings.”
A rematch neither side quite planned
The pairing is a quirk of the weather. Friday’s rainout pushed Game 4 back a day and reshuffled both rotations: Cleveland moved Foster Griffin up into a bulk role on Saturday, while Tampa kept Rasmussen on his regular turn rather than rushing him back on short rest. Messick, Cleveland’s regular-season ace at 12-9 with a 2.56 ERA and 193 strikeouts, took the loss in Game 2 despite allowing only unearned runs — but his postseason command has wobbled, with eight walks in fewer than 12 innings across three starts. Guardians manager Stephen Vogt has shown a quick hook with his rookie; another short outing would tax a bullpen that worked hard in the Game 4 defeat.
What the numbers say about Sunday
The market has noticed. Tampa opened as a -128 favourite for Game 5, with Cleveland at +107, reflecting both the pitching edge and the Rays’ revived bats: Yandy Diaz and Jonathan Aranda combined for five hits and four RBIs in Saturday’s 7-3 rout, the response to a Game 3 loss in which Cleveland edged Tampa 3-2. The Guardians counter with home soil and the memory that they have already beaten Rasmussen once — though both runs off him in Game 1 came on solo homers, and the damage was done after he left. “Now it’s a three-game series,” Vogt said. “I’d put our guys up against any team in the world in a three-game series.” Four days of baseball with no rest day remain if it goes the distance; Sunday is where the tone gets set.
