{"id":416135,"date":"2026-10-01T22:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T22:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/416135\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T22:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T22:30:07","slug":"yankees-to-face-rays-ace-drew-rasmussen-in-alds-game-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/416135\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees to face Rays ace Drew Rasmussen in ALDS Game 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Yankees<\/a> are set to face an immediate test in the ALDS.<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Rays plan to start ace Drew Rasmussen<\/a> in Game 1 on Saturday night at Tropicana Field, manager Kevin Cash confirmed to reporters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While expected, the decision is notable because Rasmussen \u2014 beyond being one of MLB\u2019s best pitchers \u2014 is a notorious Yankee killer.<\/p>\n

In his career against the Yankees, the right-handed Rasmussen is 5-2 with a 1.81 ERA over 11 appearances (10 starts).<\/p>\n

That includes four starts this year, when Rasmussen went 2-1 with a 2.86 ERA and 26 strikeouts in 22 innings.<\/p>\n

The best of those outings happened last week at Yankee Stadium, where Rasmussen took a no-hitter into the seventh<\/a> and finished with 11 strikeouts over 6.2 innings of one-run ball.<\/p>\n

Overall, Rasmussen went 16-5 with a 2.67 ERA and an American League-best 0.91 WHIP in 30 starts in the regular season.<\/p>\n

Rasmussen earned the Game 1 nod over fellow right-handers Nick Martinez (15-6, 3.10 ERA) and Freddy Peralta (0.96 ERA in five September starts). Tampa Bay has not announced its ALDS rotation beyond Game 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I could say it\u2019s just baseball, but obviously there\u2019s just a little bit more to it \u2014 a little bit more excitement, a little bit more adrenaline,\u201d Rasmussen recently told MLB.com<\/a>, before knowing which team he would face in the ALDS.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, in all honesty, the preparation doesn\u2019t change. There\u2019s still a job to do, and then at the end of the day, all you\u2019re trying to do is give your team a chance to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Yankees did not reveal their Game 1 starter after completing a two-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox<\/a> in the Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n

Because that series didn\u2019t require a third game, that night\u2019s would-be starter Gerrit Cole (10-9, 3.61 ERA) is available for Game 1. The other candidate is left-hander Carlos Rod\u00f3n (7-3, 2.67 ERA), whom the Yankees didn\u2019t need to use in relief against Boston.<\/p>\n

Game 1 figures to be pivotal for both teams, as the Yankees will likely turn to AL Cy Young Award favorite Cam Schlittler (14-6, 1.95 ERA) for Game 2.<\/p>\n

Schlittler \u2014 who pitched 6.1 scoreless innings in a Wild Card Game 1 victory \u2014 would be lined up for a potential winner-take-all Game 5 as well.<\/p>\n

For the Rays, that increases the importance of taking advantage of Rasmussen\u2019s starts, beginning with Game 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the standard,\u201d Rays pitching coach Kyle Snyder told MLB.com. \u201cHe brings it all to the table, and I mean that. For me, he is the standard. If somebody wants to know what success looks like, you don\u2019t have to look too far.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the extra off-days, the Yankees and Rays could use only three starters in the series without anyone having to pitch on extra rest.<\/p>\n

After a six-inning, one-run gem against Boston, left-hander Max Fried (5-5, 2.80) is certain to start one of the middle games for the Yankees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Yankees are set to face an immediate test in the ALDS. The Tampa Bay Rays plan to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[164810,84504,163001,23181,202,204,203,199,201,200,77437],"class_list":["post-416135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-alds","tag-drew-rasmussen","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-rays","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}