James A. Pittman and Pablo Robles-Imagn Images

Every September, there are three different versions of baseball being played in the majors. For a number of teams, the year is all but over, and the last month is about hitting some personal milestones, playing spoiler, and working on next year. For another group – seemingly half of the American League this year – September is about fighting for a spot in the playoffs. And then there’s a final group, teams that are already headed to the postseason. For them, the last month of the season is about jockeying for seeding and hoping like crazy that none of their pitchers gets hurt.

With 100.0% odds to make the playoffs, the Rays fall into that final group this year. Sure, the AL East race isn’t over, but we give them an 80% chance of winning the division, and that title would come with a first-round bye. That “jockeying for seeding” part is going very well so far, in other words. But hoping for pitcher health? That ship has unfortunately already sailed. On September 4, the team placed co-ace Shane McClanahan on the 15-day IL with forearm tightness. A day later, middle reliever Garrett Cleavinger hit the same IL with the same injury.

The Rays have felt approximately one starter short for the majority of the 2026 season. Though they’ve put up excellent numbers as a group, the composition of that group has varied massively. Nick Martinez has provided enviable bulk. Drew Rasmussen is in the middle of the best season of his already very good career; he’s set a career high in innings pitched, and he’s on course to flirt with a top-three Cy Young finish. McClanahan, on the other hand, had been atop the starting hierarchy in Tampa Bay for years, health permitting — a caveat that is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

After missing the entirety of the 2024 and 2025 seasons, McClanahan returned with no ill effects and was one of the best pitchers in the AL during the first half of this season. He hit the IL on July 31 with lower back tightness, but truthfully, the team probably wasn’t terribly broken up about it. His workload was already in question given the aforementioned two years of injury recovery, and a back injury notably isn’t an arm ailment. McClanahan returned only days after the minimum stint and made four starts on a normal schedule.

In the first two of those starts, though, McClanahan looked rusty. In the next two, he looked out of sorts: He struck out seven batters and allowed eight runs across 10 2/3 innings, surrendering homers in both games. He didn’t depart unexpectedly early from his most recent start, and his fastball velocity looked broadly fine; it was down a tick from his previous start, but in range of what he’d been working with all year. But after the game, the Rays placed him on the IL and called up reliever Alex Cook.

In the immediate aftermath of his injury, McClanahan projected confidence to Tampa Bay Times reporter Marc Topkin. “I don’t think we’re in a terrible spot,” he said in relation to his injury, before mentioning fatigue as a potential culprit. The team echoed his sentiments, and by all accounts, the Rays expect him back before the end of the season. In that endeavor, I wish them good luck – but I also gently remind them that pitcher injuries are rarely so simple.

If everything goes according to plan, the timing will be perfect. A 15-day IL stint would set McClanahan’s return for September 19. Give him two starts to shake off the rust – against playoff teams in the Red Sox and Phillies – and he should be ready to go in time for the postseason. With the Rays likely to get a first-round bye, McClanahan should be available to pitch either Game 1 or Game 2 of the ALDS on full rest.

However, things rarely go that smoothly. This plan assumes an uneventful recovery, and it assumes that the games McClanahan pitches aren’t excessively consequential, or at least that he returns at peak form. But the Rays are cautious and McClanahan is fragile, which calls the first assumption into question. Even if he does return smoothly, those games are hardly guaranteed to be meaningless. The Rays have a comfortable lead in the division now, but they have one of the toughest schedules in baseball the rest of the way, including four in New York against the Yankees that could make the race much closer. Shaking off that rust might be harder, or more costly, than anticipated.

It might seem like Tampa Bay always has extra starting options in reserve, but this year at least, the team could really use McClanahan’s services. Three playoff starters are locked in – Rasmussen, Martinez, and deadline acquisition Freddy Peralta. The last spot is up for grabs. Griffin Jax and Ian Seymour, the final two starters in the rotation today, both have bullpen experience and are both struggling with a starter’s workload. The bullpen, often a strength, has looked stretched in the last month and could really use some reinforcements. Getting McClanahan back would both fill out the playoff rotation and aid the playoff bullpen.

Speaking of the bullpen, losing Cleavinger the day after McClanahan makes the whole situation slightly more fraught. Cleavinger has been a middle-relief anchor for the Rays in recent years, a reverse-splits lefty who can work high-leverage situations in a pinch. His surface statistics are down this year, but he looked like basically the same pitcher as always right up until he recorded three of the worst outings of his season in his last four appearances. He promptly hit the IL after the last of those, which suggests to me that his injury is at least partly to blame for his struggles.

The Rays have plenty of pitchers who project broadly similar to Cleavinger, but that doesn’t mean his loss is costless. A Tampa Bay playoff run will almost certainly revolve around run prevention. The Rays are offensively limited, relying on a pile of platoons I wouldn’t want to trust against a playoff bullpen, which means that a deep October run will probably involve a lot of 3-2 nailbiters and pitchers duels.

Historically, that’s exactly the style this team wants to play. Tampa Bay is perhaps the best squad in the majors when it comes to getting the most out of its bullpen as a whole, deploying every arm to maximum effect. Removing Cleavinger doesn’t mean that style won’t work — part of the club’s secret sauce is that it always has more good relievers available — but let’s not get too carried away. Clearly, the identity of the players matters. Cleavinger has been one of the top-choice Rays relievers for years. He’s high on their hierarchy of leverage, but also flexible enough to pitch early in games when needed. Tampa Bay can survive without him, but he’s a meaningful loss, particularly for a team that uses pitchers inventively and generally goes to the bullpen early and often.

As is so often the case with late-season injuries, the truth is that we just don’t know how this situation will pan out. McClanahan might be totally fine already. This could truly just be a workload management situation after all. However, he also could be lost for the season. Cleavinger exists in a similar state of uncertainty. When the playoffs start, we’re going to know more about both of them; until then, we can only speculate. But one thing clear: These two injuries have come at a terrible time for Tampa Bay. There’s no way to add reinforcements anymore. There’s no time for rehab if the injuries are serious. All the Rays can do is cross their fingers – and of course, hope that the remainder of their roster is good enough that the small edge they’re forfeiting without two of their best pitchers won’t wind up mattering.