Tampa Bay Rays (1) at Cleveland Guardians (2), 1:00 PM ET

TB: Griffin Jax (8-10, 3.53 ERA, 81 DRA-)
CLE: Gavin Williams (14-8, 3.76 ERA, 69 DRA-)

This has been a rough postseason for legendary pitchers. Last year’s World Series MVP, Yoshinobu Yamamoto? After earning a win in the third game of the Division Series against Atlanta, he didn’t make it out of the third inning against Milwaukee on Monday. Drew Rasumussen gave up only one hit and a couple walks to the Yankees while pitching eight shutout innings in the first game of the Rays’ sweep of the Yankees in the Division Series, then couldn’t hold a 2-0 lead in the opener of this series. Putative AL Cy Young Award winner Cam Schlittler took the loss in the game after Rasmussen’s gem, allowing four runs in 4 ⅓ innings, and his NL counterpart, Jacob Misiorowski, hasn’t lasted long enough to qualify for a win in his two playoff starts, inefficiently throwing 182 pitches to retire 25 batters.

So it’s fallen to Gavin Williams to try to follow in the shoes of Yamamoto, Stephen Strasburg, and Madison Bumgarner to become the “it” starting pitcher of the 2026 postseason.

He struck out 11 of the 21 White Sox batters he faced in the second game of the Division Series, but his bullpen couldn’t hold the 2-1 lead he’d bequeathed them when he left the game in the sixth inning. Three nights later, he pitched the final inning of the Guardians’ 9-5 win in the series’ fourth game, and just two nights after that, he started the clincher, this time striking out 12 of 21, taking a no-hitter into the sixth inning.

As Mike Couillard pointed out in his preview of the latter game, Williams’ unremarkable 3.76 ERA is belied by his 69 DRA-, 5.6 WARP, and 33.2% K%, and 24.6% PutAway% (the rate of two-strike counts ending in a strikeout), all second in the league, as well as his 33.0% whiff rate, ranking third. He struck out nine Rays and allowed only an unearned run in 7 ⅔ innings in Cleveland’s so-long-ago-it-doesn’t-really-count 3-1 win over the Rays on April 29.

With three straight games starting today in Cleveland, Stephen Vogt will likely ride the Big Rig as long as practical to preserve his bullpen. The same won’t be the case with Jax, whose last start was a September 26 three-inning tuneup against the Phillies. His last appearance was eight days ago, when he pitched two innings in the Rays’ Division Series clincher against the Yankees. He was on the injured list with a sore elbow from August 6 to September 2, but the Rays’ caution won’t be solely health-related. The converted reliever logged more than five innings pitched in only three of his 22 starts this year, none after July 28. (Matthew Trueblood explored the Rays’ propensity for turning relievers into starters yesterday.)

Jax came into the season—hell, he came into his 12^th appearance of the season—having started in only two of his 292 major-league appearances since his rookie season. Acquired at last year’s trade deadline from the Twins for Taj Bradley, the Rays immediately went to work on him. (Those two starts occurred after the trade.) Working out of the Twins’ bullpen, he had a sweeper-heavy repertoire, throwing the pitch 41% of the time, adding a 97-mph fastball (25%) and 92-mph change (20%), reserving a 97-mph sinker for same-sided hitters. As a starter with the Rays, he’s dusted off an 84-mph curve, especially against left-handed batters, and thrown the sweeper (24% of pitches) and fastball (18%) less and the sinker (23%) more. Against lefties, his primary offering, especially ahead in the count, has been his changeup. Against righties, it’s the sweeper. Cleveland’s left-handed hitters have been particularly vulnerable to right-handers’ changeups (.287 SLG, .348 league average), an asset against the lefty-leaning Guardians lineup. StuffPro has a favorable opinion of all of his offerings.

Williams is more straightforward. He relies primarily on his 97-mph fastball and 87-mph sweeper, generating whiff rates of 32% and 44%, respectively. Batters making contact hit .197 against the four-seamer and .165 against the sweeper and they both rank among the best in the game. He also throws a sinker and a curveball. So far in the postseason, he’s added a tick or two to the velocity, averaging 99 mph on the fastball and 88 mph on the sweeper. His whiff rates on the two pitches in the playoffs are 48% and 43%, respectively, and 48% on the curve, but you have to give an assist to the White Sox for those figures.