Cleveland Guardians right-hander Cal Quantrill will face the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday looking to make a bit of history.
Quantrill will seek to remain perfect at home when he and his teammates close a three-game series against the visiting Rays.
With Cleveland locked into the No. 3 spot among the American League’s division winners, Rays manager Kevin Cash thought the Guardians might take a different tack in the series.
“Wouldn’t mind if they decided to rest some guys,” Cash said, “but it doesn’t look like they’re going to do that by the pitchers they’re throwing out.”
The next pitcher is Quantrill.
In his first full season as a starting pitcher, Quantrill (14-5, 3.49 ERA) is on the cusp of tying Vic Raschi’s major league record for perfection in one stadium. Quantrill is 13-0 with a 2.95 ERA in 42 games (32 starts) in Cleveland.
Raschi, a three-time 21-game winner for the New York Yankees, went 14-0 at Chicago’s Comiskey Park from 1947-55, never losing to the White Sox.
While the numbers for Quantrill, 27, have stood out, he’s also been the beneficiary of the best run-support in baseball.
The Guardians are scoring 6.47 runs per nine innings for the former San Diego Padres first-round draft pick (No. 8 overall) from the 2016 draft.
Quantrill stated that he wouldn’t want to pitch against his teammates every night.
“No, I don’t think anyone’s excited to face us right now,” he said. “We’re playing our best baseball, and we’re playing the right way. (Manager Terry Francona has) got the freakin’ soldiers in line and we’re ready to rock.”
Quantrill has reeled off 10 consecutive winning decisions. He was 4-5 with a 3.86 ERA on July 5 following an 11-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers. Since then, he is 10-0 with a 3.12 ERA in 15 starts.
Over two career starts against the Rays, Quantrill is 1-0 with a 2.38 in 11 1/3 innings.
Cleveland (87-68) won for the 19th time in 23 games on Wednesday. Pinch hitter Amed Rosario’s walk-off single in the 10th inning lifted the Guardians to a 2-1 victory over the Rays.
Tampa Bay (85-70) managed only six hits and finished 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. The Rays remain 1 1/2 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays (87-69) in the race for the top AL wild card.
The Rays will start Jeffrey Springs (9-4, 2.56 ERA) on Thursday, and the left-hander will attempt to become the fourth starter in Cash’s rotation to earn double-digit wins. He would join Shane McClanahan (12), Drew Rasmussen (10) and Corey Kluber (10).
In September, Springs is 3-0 with a 1.78 ERA across five starts. Sporting a 1.066 WHIP in the month, Springs has yielded just a .204 batting average and has fanned 26 in 25 1/3 innings.
Against the Guardians in three career outings (one start), Springs is 0-1 with a 4.70 ERA. The start came on July 29, when Springs took a loss after yielding three runs on six hits in five innings.
The Rays announced on Wednesday — the same day that former ace right-hander Tyler Glasnow returned from Tommy John surgery — that promising right-hander Shane Baz underwent Tommy John surgery and would miss the 2023 season.
Baz, 23, went 1-2 with a 5.00 ERA in six starts this year before he was shut down in mid-July due what was initially diagnosed as an elbow sprain.
–Field Level Media
