ST. PETERSBURG -- Sitting behind a table inside a mostly quiet Tropicana Field on Friday afternoon, Rays ace Drew Rasmussen tried to make it sound simple. The complex science and mysterious art that is pitching in the Major Leagues, he said, isn’t that complicated.
“I'm a pretty big believer that it comes down to two things,” Rasmussen said. “Preparation and execution.”
Preparation is never a concern with Rasmussen, dubbed “the standard” for all Rays pitchers by pitching coach Kyle Snyder. Execution clearly wasn’t an issue on a historic Saturday night at Tropicana Field, either.
Rasmussen carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning and put together a complete masterpiece on the mound in Game 1 of the American League Division Series, blanking the Yankees in the Rays’ 1-0 win before a rowdy, sold-out home crowd of 40,542.
If Rasmussen was still flying under the radar heading into his second career postseason start, he shouldn’t be anymore.
“He's the industry standard. At this point, he sets the standard,” Snyder said afterward. “It just goes to show he's the most underrated starting pitcher in baseball for the last five years -- and the gap is significant.”
Rasmussen struck out 10, walked only two and retired 15 straight batters before Austin Wells broke up his no-hit bid with a double down the right-field line with two outs in the eighth inning … only to be thrown out at third base on a perfect relay from Victor Mesa Jr. to shortstop Taylor Walls to Junior Caminero.
Rasmussen is the seventh pitcher in the Modern Era to carry a no-hit bid through 7 2/3 innings in the postseason and the first since Aníbal Sánchez did the same for the Nationals against the Cardinals in Game 1 of the 2019 National League Championship Series.
Rasmussen said he wasn’t thinking about his shot at history at that point, though. He was a little too caught up in the moment.
“My heart rate was at a thousand beats per minute,” he said, grinning. “I was just trying to execute one pitch at a time.”
It was the longest postseason no-hit bid in franchise history and the longest against the Yankees in the playoffs in the Modern Era, and it sparked the Rays’ first playoff victory since Game 1 of the 2021 ALDS.
It also gave them a significant advantage in this series. In all best-of-five postseason series, teams taking a 1-0 lead have gone on to win the series 116 of 160 times (73%). In Division Series with the current 2-2-1 format, teams taking a 1-0 lead at home have gone on to win 42 of 56 times (75%).
“If you look it up, the definition of ace, in my opinion, is Drew Rasmussen,” first baseman Jonathan Aranda said through interpreter Kevin Vera. “He's done it for us the entire year. He's been so good for us this whole season.”
And the Rays, in turn, have been good for Rasmussen, having won each of the two-time All-Star’s past 13 starts. Aranda’s third-inning homer off Gerrit Cole gave him all the run support he needed, and Rasmussen handled the rest.
“That's what he does. He's a machine, man. He's like a robot,” Walls said. “He does the same thing every day, every start. He executes efficiently and almost to perfection, and it’s awesome to be behind.”
Hours before Rasmussen’s final regular-season start at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 22, manager Kevin Cash compared the 31-year-old right-hander’s incredible work ethic and preparation to that of Roy Halladay, the Hall of Famer whom Cash caught with the Blue Jays in the early 2000s and the author of the most recent individual no-hitter in postseason history.
Cash walked out of the visiting dugout that day wondering if he had set too high a bar for Rasmussen, only to see him carry a no-hitter into the seventh inning and strike out 11 in a victory over the Yankees that clinched the AL East title for Tampa Bay.
He was even more masterful, more “Doc”-like, in the Rays’ postseason opener.
“I've said a lot of dumb things in my life,” Cash said. “That one was not.”
Rasmussen racked up a career-high 23 swinging strikes, the most by a Ray in a postseason game, stifling the Yankees with a mix of cutters, changeups, four-seam fastballs and two-seamers. He said he didn’t feel like he settled in until the fourth inning, but the hitters he faced didn’t seem to agree.
“I feel like he just hit all his spots today,” Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “He was on.”
It should perhaps come as no surprise that Rasmussen was at his best against the Yankees. He always seems to be. In 11 career regular-season games (10 starts) against New York, Rasmussen is 5-2 with a 1.81 ERA, and he permitted two runs or fewer in 10 of those 11 outings.
He did it again on the biggest stage Saturday night, a nearly perfect display of preparation and execution.
“It seemed like he went out and doubled down tonight,” Cash said. “Made it pretty easy to sit back and watch and take some decisions out of our hands.”