Cleveland Indians: A look at the first matchup against the Rays

Storylines

It’s not who you play, it’s when you play them

While the Indians have done a nice job of taking care of teams below them, the Rays are red-hot right now. The old adage is that “it’s not who you play, it’s when you play them.” No one wants to play the Rays right now. They swept the Red Sox, swept the Royals, and split with the Braves. They’re just playing really good baseball. While the Indians are in the midst of a roller coaster part of the season (like most of 2018). The key for the Indians is to get healthy for a sure-fire playoff run. The key for the Rays is to hope they can get hot enough that they somehow sneak into a wildcard game.

Worse/Best case scenario

Worse case: 1-2 series loss

The Indians can’t let the Rays come into their park and take this series. It’s gonna be a bad look for them. While the Indians aren’t healthy, they still have a loaded offense that needs to wake up. Meanwhile the Rays are wide awake and are the hottest team in baseball. But again, the Indians don’t get swept it’s only happened once this year, that’s tied for the fewest times in the majors.

Best case: 2-1 series win

Sweeping this series would certainly shut the Rays down, but that’s just not likely. The Rays are coming in with a Cy Young candidate and a hot offense. The Indians will send two of their best to the mound on the days Snell doesn’t play, giving them a pretty good chance to take those games.

The series kicks off tonight at 7:10 PM EST and concludes with a 4:10 start on Sunday before these teams head their separate ways before meeting up again in two weeks in Tampa.