Season on the Brink, Rays Turn To Tyler Glasnow to Stay Alive
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Every time Tyler Glasnow picked up a baseball all summer long, there was this goal in the distance of being about to return from Tommy John surgery in time to help the Tampa Bay Rays win some playoff games.
But the dream was always tempered a bit. Glasnow, the 29-year-old flamethrower who was 16-4 in the past three years, kept saying repeatedly that the comeback was only going to happen if he felt good every day. Any setback, and that 2022 dream was done.
Thankfully, for Glasnow and the Rays, the rehab plan stayed on pace, and all went went well. He's looked great in four rehab starts in Durham, and in two more in the big leagues. He's just been doing ''that every five days thing'' and seeing where it takes him.
Well, here's where we at. It's taken Glasnow to Cleveland now, for Game 2 of the American League wild-card series with the Guardians.
And all that's on the line? Just the entire season for the Rays.
Following Friday's tough 2-1 loss in Game 1, the Rays are on the brink of elimination. And to stay alive, they're turning to a guy who's pitched a grand total of 6 1/3 innings in the big leagues this year. That's nothing they would have — or even could have — scripted all summer long.
"I think anybody would feel really good with Tyler Glasnow on the mound,'' said Shane McClanahan, the tough-luck losing pitcher in Game 1. "The guy's a great person, he's a leader, he's a workhorse. I'm sure you guys know that. It's going to be fun to watch him do his thing.''
Glasnow has looked good in his two starts, where he threw 50 pitches in Cleveland on Sept. 28, and 64 on Monday in Boston. He's only allowed one run — a homer to Cleveland second baseman Gabriel Arias — and has given up just four hits with 10 strikeouts.
He's been that good. And the Rays need more of that on Saturday — the game starts at 12:07 p.m. ET on ESPN — to keep their season going.
Glasnow feels great physically, and he's all set mentally, too. The moment isn't too big for him at all.
"It feels good (to be pitching in the postseason(. I think that was always the ultimate goal,'' Glasnow said Friday. "I think early on that wasn't really in the cards and then progression was good and I had a lot of really good people with me, like trainers and coaches and everything, and the timing felt good, so now I'm here ready to pitch in the postseason.
"I noticed the more I threw and the more intent I put behind it (during the rehab), it was almost like loosening up in my arm and I would get off the mound and be like tomorrow it's going to be sore. And I would make wake up and be like, wow, it's way better than it was before my bullpen. And it just kept progressing and progressing.''
Glasnow will go up against Cleveland's Triston McKenzie, the 6-foot-5, 165-pound 25-year-old. The pressure is there for sure because it's an elimination game for the Rays. It also doesn't help that the Rays are struggling offensively the past two weeks. They've gone 2-10 during that stretch, and scored one run or less in eight of those 12 games.
It also helps a lot that Glasnow has been here before. He's pitched in eight postseason games in 2019 and 2020. He knows what the emotions will feel like.
"I think knowing what to expect when I go out there was sort of the biggest thing last time,'' he said. "And it's nice knowing, I think, in the back of my mind, knowing I have been in this situation like that a few times. It helps me to prepare.
"I think too, I'm a few years older, I have a few more like years of experience, I think like physically, just the stuff we were talking about before, I feel good. So that gives me a lot of confidence going in for sure.''
Glasnow knows this young Cleveland team is for real. They don't strike out much, they run the bases well and they battle in every at-bat.
"They're not like a huge swing-and-miss team. They're pretty disciplined. They can get to stuff outside the zone,'' Glasnow said. "They're obviously fast too. But I think for me it's just, as far as game-planning goes, I'm going to pitch to my strengths.
"They're a good team, they're scrappy, and I think it's one of those teams you face that when you're pitching, you can tell their only goal is to score runs. It's like they grind together to try and put some runs together. There's other teams where it's kind of whether it's home runs or just people free swinging. But this team you can tell they're like tight-knit. They feel like identical to us. But, yeah, they got a good team over there.''
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Tom Brew is the publisher of Inside The Rays, and has been with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation network for three years. He is an award-winning writer and editor who has spent most of his four-decade career at the Tampa Bay Times, Indianapolis Star and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He has written four books.