The Opener: Rasmussen, Messick, Peralta

The Guardians’ Game 6 starter is TBD no longer. It’ll be right-hander Shawn Armstrong serving as the opener tonight. Armstrong has tossed four scoreless innings in the series. 1. Rasmussen dominates again Rays righty Drew Rasmussen continued his tremendous postseason with another strong start on Sunday. He held the Guardians to one run over seven innings en route to a Game 5 victory. Rasmussen has a crisp 1.29 ERA across three playoff starts. In an era where managers are quick to go to the bullpen, Rasmussen has been a workhorse. He’s covered at least six innings in all three appearances. “I feel like I say it every time that he pitches, but I mean, he’s a dog,” outfielder Chandler Simpson told reporters, including Jorge Castillo of ESPN. “And every time he’s out there, we know we got the best chance to win.” 2. Messick labors through two innings On the other side of the workload coin was Guardians lefty Parker Messick. The rookie needed 57 pitches to get six outs in the shortest start of his big-league career. Messick was fortunate to give up just two earned runs given the traffic on the bases. The Rays had five hits and two walks against him, but managed just a single run in each of the first and second innings. Messick is probably not available tonight, though the abbreviated outing could put him in play out of the bullpen for Game 7, if the series goes that far. 3. Peralta to start Game 6 Cleveland will have a tough task to extend the series with Freddy Peralta getting the ball for Tampa Bay. The trade deadline acquisition fired six scoreless innings to even the series in Game 2. He chipped in a couple of outs in Game 4 behind starter Nick Martinez. Peralta has allowed just four earned runs over 39 1/3 innings since the beginning of September. He completely turned around his season in Tampa Bay after a rough first half with the Mets. “When I got traded here, I just felt different,” Peralta said last week (h/t Anthony DiComo of MLB.com). “For some reason I got here, and I felt like myself again.” Photo courtesy of Ken Blaze, Imagn Images View Comments (3)