ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. _ The dynamics of a best-of-three playoff series, last seen in the major leagues more than 50 years ago, are different.
Rays manager Kevin Cash said before Tuesday's opener against the Blue Jays that he expected each game to be like a Game 7, with an "elimination-style" feel.
It certainly played out that way Tuesday, as the Rays pulled out a tense 3-1 win.
The Jays played the infield in in the fourth inning. Starter Blake Snell worked five hitless innings and was pulled in the sixth with one on, replaced by Diego Castillo. Nick Anderson, the Rays' highest-leverage reliever, was warming up in the sixth, brought in for the seventh and sent back out for the eighth, throwing a season-high 29 pitches. Shortstop Willy Adames flashed leather, making a trio of highlight plays.
Randy Arozarena created the first run with a triple, then scored on a wild pitch. And Manuel Margot delivered the others with a two-run homer in the seventh.
Game 2, and the first of two chances to move on to the division series in San Diego, is Wednesday at 4:07 p.m. at Tropicana Field. Tyler Glasnow will start against Hyun Jin Ryu.
Snell was dominant and dazzling, striking out a Rays postseason record-tying nine, working into the sixth. He allowed only walks in the first and firth, then his lone hit, a single by Alejandro Kirk leading off the sixth. Snell got two more outs, striking out Cavan Biggio, the only lefty in the Jays' lineup, for the third time.
Matt Garza (in Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS) and Charlie Morton (Game 3 of the 2019 ALDS) are the other Rays pitchers to strike out nine.
The Rays got their first run in the fourth. Arozarena, continuing his impressive introductory tour, laced a tripled to right-center to open the fourth off Jays lefty reliever Robbie Ray, then scored two batters later on a ball four wild pitch.
Then they got two more in the seventh off reliever A.J. Cole. Joey Wendle worked a seven-pitch walk with one out, then three pitches and four pickoff attempts later, Margot drove an 86 mph cutter over the leftfield fence.
The Jays came back and got a run in the eighth. Anderson, working in multiple innings for the first time since his July 25 season debut, allowed a single and a double with one out, then a sac fly to Bo Bichette, the Lakewood High product.
There was drama in the ninth also, as Pete Fairbanks allowed a one-out double to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. before getting the final two outs.
The Jays made they called a "creative" decision _ and others called a gamble _ in starting Matt Shoemaker, who had pitched three innings since an Aug. 21 injury, and pushing ace Hyun Jin Ryu to Wednesday's second game.
Did it work? Hard to say. Shoemaker, a righty, worked three innings and didn't allow any runs. The Jays then went to lefty Robbie Ray, and the Rays, whose lineup was constructed in an alternating fashion as if they expected it, didn't change much, just pinch-hitting righty Hunter Renfroe for lefty Yoshi Tsutsugo.
Fitting with the many pandemic-related things that made the 2020 regular season anything but normal, the postseason began without most of the usual pomp and circumstance.
Players and coaches didn't get introduced along the foul lines. No playoffs logo was painted on the field (though there were Wild Card Series mats for the at-bat circles with a sponsor logo).
The ceremonial first pitch was a video of ESPN broadcaster Dick Vitale throwing to mascot Raymond, and saxophonist B.K. Jackson's version of the national anthem was a tape from last year.
On the plus side, there were some "fans" in the stands for the first time this season, a couple hundred by the looks of it.
Family members of the Rays and Blue Jays who are in quarantine with the players were allowed in the 200 level on opposite sides of the press box, non-quarantined family members were in the outfield seats and Rays team employees in the party deck above leftfield.
Major League Baseball's decision to expand the playoffs to include eight teams from each league resulted in a new format. No division winners got first-round byes, as all teams instead had to play opening-round best-of-three series. The only advantage was that all three games were at the site of the higher-seeded team.
So while the two one-game wild-card showdowns were eliminated, all 16 teams had to deal with a different strategy of wining two out of three games. That format hadn't been used in the major league since the pre-playoffs era, last in 1962 to break a regular-season tie for the National League pennant.
The Giants beat the Dodgers that year, the Dodgers beat the Braves in 1959, the Giants famously beat the Dodgers in 1951, and the Cardinals beat the Dodgers in 1946.
Cash said the dynamic of a best-of-three series was definitely different given the sense of urgency of a single game, or a Game 7, but not immediacy.
"That's a great question," he said before the game. "I think it's closer to Game 7 three games in a row. You can't say it's do or die because it's not, but a three-game series I get the sense is going to heavily viewed similar to elimination-style games."
Jays manager Charlie Montoyo has a simpler take: "It's all about winning two games."
