MLB Baseball
2026-10-12 - Cleveland Guardians at Tampa Bay Rays
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
United States : MLB Playoff AL Championship Series Game 1
Monday 12th October 2026 - Scheduled 8pm EST
1am (British Time)
Preview
This may not have been a Series that too many predicted for the American League Championship when the 2026 Major League season began, but the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians deserve plenty of credit. They came into the post-season as the Number 1 and Number 2 Seed in the American League and both have beaten Divisional rivals in the last Round of the Playoffs to earn the spot in the American League Championship Series.
However, those Divisional Round Series were won in very different fashion and that could have an impact in how this Championship Series will play out, at least early in the Series.
The Tampa Bay Rays swept past the New York Yankees to underline their spot as the team with the most wins in the American League in the regular season. That also means earning plenty of rest ahead of the Championship Series, while the Cleveland Guardians had to fight back from 0-2 behind and win three straight games against the Chicago White Sox.
It is the only Divisional Round Series that needed all five games to be completed and it is a Series that was concluded on Saturday meaning relatively little rest for the Guardians.
That alone would make things challenging, but the bigger factor may be the amount of arms that Cleveland used to battle past the Chicago White Sox and it is going to have impacted the bullpen. The depth is something that the Guardians may feel is an edge over the Tampa Bay Rays, but that has been somewhat negated with the approach taken by Manager Stephen Vogt in the last Round and you do have to wonder if the Guardians will have enough time between games to get those arms back up to close to full strength.
This all adds up to a bit more pressure on the starting pitchers to avoid getting into early difficulties and Foster Griffin will be aware of that when stepping onto the mound for the Guardians.
A strong return to the Major Leagues with the Washington Nationals earned Foster Griffin a mid-season trade to the Cleveland Guardians, although he did not quite reach the level he had been earlier in the season.
Foster Griffin will be pitching as a starter in the Playoffs for the first time in his career, but he did throw almost 3 Innings out of the bullpen in Game 3 of the Divisional Round Series win over the Chicago White Sox. In that time Foster Griffin allowed a single run and so was influential in the fightback in that Series, but he has not seen the Tampa Bay Rays this season.
The Rays will be going with Drew Rasmussen who has remained a consistently strong Major League starting pitcher and who made big headlines with his dominant performance in the Game 1 win over the New York Yankees in the last Round. He did not allow a single run in 8 Innings thrown and Drew Rasmussen picked up the decision win, which is his first in the Playoffs.
Drew Rasmussen finished with a 1-1 record in two starts against the Cleveland Guardians in the regular season and restricted them to two earned runs in 12 Innings thrown. The pitcher will take great confidence from having thrown 7 of those Innings at home where Rasmussen did not give up a single run against the Cleveland Guardians, which is also the most recent start against them.
In eight career appearances against the Cleveland Guardians, Drew Rasmussen has a 2.73 ERA and six of those have been as a starter.
Tampa Bay are the favourites to win the American League Pennant and did beat Cleveland in five of six regular season meetings, including sweeping them at home.
Prediction
The star power may not be as clear in this Championship Series as in the one being played in the National League, but the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians should not be playing with an inferiority complex around them.
Game 1 looks like one in which the Rays have a solid advantage- they are going with a pitcher who has just dominated in his first Playoff start and the Rays are much more rested than the Cleveland Guardians.
A taxed bullpen does not help the road team and it may allow the Tampa Bay Rays to edge to a victory and begin this Series with a fourth straight post-season win.
The Pick :
Tampa Bay Rays 3-0 Cleveland Guardians
