Rays Face Must-Win ALCS Game 4 Against Guardians Tonight

We have not seen a whole lot of movement in the market either with this. And, you know, Nick Martinez is a guy that has had plenty of success here against this Guardians team. The Guardians are going to go. You had mentioned it. The plan is bullpen time, matchup time, two games to one right now. The Guardians, I don't want to say nothing is a must win unless, of course, you're down three games to none. But, yeah, it's a pretty big win here for the Tampa Bay Rays, and they need to get it. Or this is going to be a huge opportunity for the Guardians to go up three games to one. Yeah, look, if Cleveland goes up, you would make them the heavy favorite, as they should be, to win the series. I think that that's absolutely fair. But it's not like Messick or Gavin Williams or even Foster Griffith are pitching tonight to do that. And so I favor Tampa Bay tonight. I favored Tampa Bay previously. And credit to Cleveland, they came back and won that. But it just shows you, more than anything, Joe, I think in this series in particular, that the margins are really thin in this series. And the games will be very close in this series. All of them probably within a run. You can't get any good odds on plus one and a half on either side. I don't think you will all season, all series long. And if there's ever a day for the Rays to pop up a little on offense, it would probably be today. This would be the opportunity. I understand that they had the biggest differential in terms of OPS versus lefties and righties this season, 678 against lefties, 751 against righties. So that tells you that they're favored in a big way when they face right-handed pitching, but they still got to do it. And they have guys that haven't done it yet. Like, I mean, Junior Caminero is going to have to hit for the Rays to win the World Series. He's not going to be able to go through this entire ALCS and World Series without winning. and on the flip side as we've talked about the guy who's now shown up and and having a huge impact Jose Ramirez is impacting Cleveland in a very big way he's hitting stealing bases all of a sudden he's back to being Jose Ramirez again so in my mind uh for the Rays to win the American League Championship Series I think they have to win tonight I do because this is the gimme game this is the game that you're supposed to win when you don't have to face Williams you don't have to face Messick you don't have to face Foster Griffin if they don't win tonight it's three one and then you know I mean honestly Joe Cleveland's just gotta win one more game either in St P or in Cleveland and I and i probably would assume that that will happen so all the pressure on the race tonight but the good news for them is bullpen game facing openers i mean they don't deserve to win the ALCS if they can't win yeah and again the wind is what you need to keep an eye on uh and the gusts are up to 40 miles an hour uh which is going to kill a lot of fly balls i think that progressive there so this is you know ground balls run rise up manufacturing runs which is kind of what these two teams have done better than anybody really mostly this year uh i don't know that the home run comes into play so guys are gonna have to put the ball in play and that's what Tampa has done really, really well. Uh, and if they're not leaving, if they're not leading early, uh, do we like them to lead late? Because I'm a little worried about the backend now with how much usage we've had for the guardians. I think Tampa playing from in front is important in this game. No. Uh, yeah. I mean, look, it was important last game and it didn't matter. Yeah. So, uh, look, I, I, I think that Cleveland's closer is just as good as Tampa Bay's and Tampa Bay's closer is just as good as Cleveland's but I just don't think Tampa Bay is going to be in a spot like Cleveland is today and by the way I don't think Cleveland will do this again the rest of the series if it goes seven I don't think they'll be opening up with Sean Armstrong in game seven in St. Petersburg I feel like they will do something else uh it just feels like Cleveland almost has no choice and the reason why they have no choices because they went all hands on deck against the White Sox to come back and win three to two so at some point that's going to bite you and that's today there's no way joe that a month ago if i would have told you cleveland they're in the American League championship series you would have said probably not likely but okay sure and on top of it they're going to be using an opener named Sean Armstrong in game four you'd have been like there's no chance of that happening and here we are right here we are so uh yeah like uh it'll be Cantillo is really the key i guess tonight i mean that that's really where you want to focus all of your energy on here because if that guy shuts down the Rays then they will win and if not they will lose like that that's pretty much it