Cleveland finally has an ALCS Game 1 starter. The Guardians named left-hander Foster Griffin late Sunday, and he takes the ball Monday night at 8 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field opposite Tampa Bay right-hander Drew Rasmussen.
It is not the name anybody expected, and the reasoning is half necessity and half a genuine matchup read.
The Necessity Part
Parker Messick is unavailable until Game 2. Gavin Williams is unavailable until Game 3. Cleveland went five games to get past the White Sox and arrived in Tampa with its rotation order dictated by rest rather than preference.
Griffin came over from the Washington Nationals at the trade deadline. He had a 3.06 ERA in 22 starts before the move and a 5.19 ERA in nine starts after it, which is the kind of split that makes a front office nervous about handing him a Game 1.
He also spent 2023 through 2025 pitching in Japan, which is a reminder that the résumé here is unusual for a championship series starter.
The Matchup Part Is Actually Good
Tampa Bay finished 25th in baseball with a .679 OPS against left-handed pitching. That is the single best reason to start Griffin, and it is a real one.
The counterweight: the Rays won the regular-season series 5-1. Cleveland is not walking into a building where it has had success.
Griffin’s most recent work was his best. In ALDS Game 3 against Chicago he threw 2 2/3 innings as a bulk reliever and struck out seven, a Cleveland postseason record for strikeouts by a reliever in a game, in a 9-3 win. By one accounting he faced 11 batters and struck out seven of them.
“All I wanted to do in the first was get the boys back to the dugout, limit the damage there,” Griffin said of that outing.
Rasmussen Is the Harder Assignment
Tampa Bay’s ace comes in on extra rest and has not lost a start since the All-Star Game. The Rays swept the Yankees in three games in the ALDS and have been sitting since.
Cleveland’s projected lineup: Steven Kwan in left, Jose Ramirez at third, Chase DeLauter in right, Jo Adell at designated hitter, Nathaniel Lowe at first, Travis Bazzana at second, Patrick Bailey behind the plate, Petey Halpin in center and Brayan Rocchio at shortstop.
Tampa Bay projects Yandy Diaz at DH, Jonathan Aranda at first, Junior Caminero at third, Victor Mesa Jr. in left, Ryan Vilade in right, Liam Hicks catching, Jonny DeLuca in center, Richie Palacios at second and Taylor Walls at shortstop.
What Cleveland Needs From Him
Not length. Griffin has thrown 2 2/3 innings in his last appearance and is coming off a bad two months as a starter.
What the Guardians need is four innings that keep the game within a run, so that Messick in Game 2 and Williams in Game 3 arrive with the series still even. Griffin against a lineup that cannot hit lefties is a reasonable way to buy that. It is also the only way Cleveland had.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.