The Tampa Bay Rays are heading into the 2026 World Series with two former Blue Jays in their bullpen, and both Steven Matz and Bryan Baker are still chasing their first championship ring. Toronto is out, but the old Blue Jays connection is alive in the title race as the Rays get set to face the Milwaukee Brewers.
For Matz, this is another swing at a prize that slipped away the first time. He never reached the postseason with Toronto, although 2021 came close.
That year, he put together a career-best 2.7 fWAR across 29 starts, but the Blue Jays finished one game short of the final Wild Card spot. He moved on after that, signing with the St.
Louis Cardinals in free agency and later pitching for the Boston Red Sox before landing a two-year deal with Tampa Bay ahead of 2026.
His October work this year has been limited, but it has mattered. Matz made the playoff roster and sat out the Rays’ ALDS sweep of the New York Yankees, then got the call in Game 3 of the ALCS against Cleveland.
He answered with two perfect innings in Tampa Bay’s 3-2 loss, setting down all six batters he faced and striking out two. Those are still his only innings this postseason, but they were enough to show he can help even without a big late-inning workload.
This is Matz’s second trip to the World Series. His first came in 2015 with the Mets, when he was 24 and working in a larger October role during his rookie season.
He started in the NLDS, NLCS and World Series, and gave New York a chance in Game 4 against Kansas City by allowing two earned runs on seven hits over five innings with no walks and five strikeouts. The Mets lost 5-3 and the Royals finished the job in Game 5.
It took 10 years for Matz to get back to postseason baseball. He returned in 2025 with Boston, pitching in Games 2 and 3 of the Red Sox’s Wild Card Series loss to the Yankees.
In those two outings, he allowed three hits over two scoreless innings, walked none and struck out two. Add that to this year’s work, and he’s now logged four straight scoreless postseason innings since returning to October.
Baker’s path is much more abrupt. His time with Toronto barely registered.
He debuted for the Blue Jays on Sept. 5, 2021, throwing one scoreless inning with one hit allowed and one strikeout. That was his only appearance in a Toronto uniform before Baltimore claimed him off waivers after the season.
Five years later, he has become one of the biggest bullpen pieces on Tampa Bay’s staff. Baker put together a huge regular season in 2026, finishing with a 1.44 ERA and 3.07 FIP over 65 games, plus a major league-leading 41 saves and 63 strikeouts in 62.1 innings. He has carried that same edge into October.
The Yankees never got a hit off him in the ALDS. Baker saved all three games of Tampa Bay’s sweep, striking out four and walking one across the series. Since saves became official in 1969, no pitcher had converted every game of a postseason sweep of at least three games while keeping the other team hitless.
He kept rolling against Cleveland. Baker threw four more scoreless innings in the ALCS, appearing in Games 2, 4, 5 and 6.
He gave up one hit and one walk, struck out two, and faced the minimum in three of those four outings. Kevin Cash used him to protect two-run leads in Games 2 and 5, brought him in twice in non-save spots, and then let him record the final out of Game 6 to clinch the pennant.
That’s a sharp turn from Baker’s lone earlier playoff appearance, when he struggled with Baltimore in Game 2 of the 2023 ALDS. He got just one out, walked three hitters and was charged with three runs without allowing a hit in an 11-8 loss to the eventual champion Texas Rangers.
Now Baker heads to his first World Series with Tampa Bay trusting him to close out games, while Matz gets one more shot at the ring he missed before.
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