Just make sure you get to keep playing baseball, boys.
The Guardians continue to have somewhat of a snake-bitten season at home this season, dropping two games against the Rays to head back to Tampa Bay down 3-2 in a 7-game series. They now face Freddy Peralta for a second time, who threw six scoreless against Cleveland in game 2 (after also dominating the Yankees in the ALDS). Meanwhile, the Guardians will open with the “reliable vet” option of Shawn Armstrong and the rest of their pitching plan for the game being, essentially, a shaken 8-ball reading “Reply hazy, try again.”
Keys to Game Six for the Guardians:
- Hit Freddy Peralta’s Fastball: Peralta is a three-pitch pitcher with a four-seamer, a changeup, and a curveball. Peralta threw a season-high 71% four-seamer mix against the Guardians in game two of the ALCS. It worked. So, does that mean he goes back to the same plan in an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy, or does he make an adjustment to mix in more changeups? Peralta’s average velocity on his fastball was up 2.6 mph from his season average, so I suspect he is simply going to let this pitch ride and dare the Guardians to hit it. We have seen enough of the Rays’ pen to know that there is a reason they haven’t lost a game this season when leading after eight innings. They are very good, so they need to find a way to get to Peralta to have a chance tonight. So… there you go, Guardians. Gird your loins, hit the fastball, and this has a good shot of going to a winner-take-all. For what it’s worth, during the season, Chase DeLauter was 15 runs above average against the fastball, Steven Kwan 5.2 runs above average, Travis Bazzana 4.5 runs above average, and Brayan Rocchio 2.1 runs above average.
Adjust to Playing on Turf: There were a couple rough plays on the Tampa Bay turf in games one and two and the Guardians’ defense has been shaky the past two nights. If the Guardians win tonight, they will need to play clean defense and adjust to the various quirks of the turf at Tropicana Field.
Strategically Deploy Your Pitchers: After Armstrong, I think we will be set to see Daniel Espino, Joey Cantillo and Tanner Bibee in some capacity. Foster Griffin threw 44 pitches on Saturday… so he could also get an inning, given the elimination game dynamic. Stephen Vogt will need to leverage these arms in the right moments to have a chance at turning the game over to his high leverage arms (who also all threw yesterday, of course). The one thing I definitely would like to see is Espino facing a different part of the order than Diaz and Caminero who have seen him quite a bit.
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You know, I feel so good about this Guardians’ season. I will be disappointed in a loss because you can never guarantee yourself this kind of opportunity again, but I also feel proud of what these guys have done to get to this point. I would be so sad because there is a good chance I will not see any more Guardians’ baseball until at least Memorial Day, but I have a lot of happy memories from 2026 to keep me warm. I also would be happy to watch the Brewers-Rays World Series because I like both teams and would enjoy seeing either get a title. But, hey, neither of them deserve to see one as much as Cleveland baseball fans do. None of their players deserve a ring like Jose Ramirez does. So, let’s see our guys really fight to keep this ride going another day.
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