Tampa Bay’s Tyler Glasnow faced Texas in early June. Glasnow went six innings and allowed one earned run. The Rays own a 53-28 home record, but Glasnow has allowed a combined 15 earned runs in his last five starts. Texas comes into the postseason losing four of its last six games. Jordan Montgomery has only allowed more than three earned runs twice in eleven starts since being acquired by the Rangers.

We’ve reached the playoffs, so there are going to be a lot of very good starting pitching matchups. That is the case for this game, with Tyler Glasnow facing off against Jordan Montgomery. However, one of the reasons I like the Rays to take Game 1 is that they had a 3.83 bullpen ERA this season, while the Rangers had a 4.77 bullpen ERA. Another reason is that the Rays were 53-28 at home, while the Rangers were a mediocre 40-41 on the road.

Jordan Montgomery has pitched exceptionally well in his last four starts allowing two runs combined but the Rangers only won two of those games. The bullpen is where this series will be won and lost and I feel much better about the Rays bullpen giving less than a full run ERA better than the Rangers. Texas just lost three of four at Seattle and also lost the division putting them in this wild-card spot. The Rays have averaged 7 runs per game while batting .320 over the last week. Rays to win.

The Rays have some lineup questions injury-wise not to mention Wander Franco clearly isn't coming back this year. Texas led the AL in runs (881), home runs (233, tied with the Twins), batting average (.263), on-base percentage (.337) and slugging percentage (.452). Lefty Jordan Montgomery has a 2.79 ERA since coming over from St. Louis, was great down the stretch and the Rays haven't seen him. TB's Tyler Glasnow had a few shaky September starts and has thrown a career high in innings so he might be tired.