Tampa Bay Rays have Cy Young matchup Friday against the Blue Jays

What an early season matchup we have on-tap tonight at Tropicana Field. The Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays will face off for the first time this season, and Friday’s game should be electric.

Two early AL Cy Young front-runners will be on the bump for each team, Tyler Glasnow for the Tampa Bay Rays, and Steven Matz for the Jays.

Now, if you don’t follow the Jays I know what you are thinking, Steven Matz? Well actually yes. He’s been nothing short of fantastic so far in 2021.

In his first three starts with the Blue Jays Matz is 3-0 with a 1.47 ERA and 0.81 WHIP. Very impressive numbers for a guy who was 0-5 with a 9.68 ERA with the New York Mets in 2020.

Matz has gone at least six innings in all three of his starts so far in 2021, and his best was his first start of the season. Against the Rangers on April 5th, Matz went 6.1 innings, allowing only two hits, one run, and struck out nine.

He has followed up his first start of the season with back-to-back six inning, one run starts. April 10th against the Angels he K’d four in route to his second win, and April 17th he K’d five Royals in route to win number three.

Matz is exceeding expectations so far with the Blue Jays, but for Tampa Bay Rays fans, they hope his great play ends tonight.

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On the other hand, someone Tampa Bay Rays fans want to see continue to be great is Tyler Glasnow.

Glasnow will make his fifth start of the season Friday, he enters with a 2-0 record, 0.73 ERA, and 0.64 WHIP. Glasnow has been basically unhittable this season, allowing only nine hits in 24.2 innings pitched.

With that, Glasnow has K’d 36 batters in those innings, breaking down to 13.1 strikeouts per nine innings pitched.

Glasnow’s last start against the New York Yankees was his worst of the season, he also had a bit of an injury scare.

Glasnow will be making his second start at the Trop of 2021, and his last one was his best one.

Against the Texas Rangers on April 12th, Glasnow went 7.2 innings, with an incredible 14 K’s, and only allowed two hits.

The Tampa Bay Rays are coming in hot, winners in five of their last six games, getting them back over .500 for the season.

The Blue Jays are going in the other direction.

The Jays have dropped four of their last six, moving them two games under .500.

The Tampa Bay Rays were 8-4 last season against the Jays, including a two-game sweep of the Jays in the Wild Card series.

First pitch tonight from Tyler Glasnow will be 7:10 PM EST at Tropicana Field.