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ST. PETERSBURG -- This postseason could be different in one very welcome way for Tyler Glasnow.

It might finally be normal. 

In 2019, Glasnow was still coming back from an injury. Nobody has ever used the word “normal” to describe 2020. Two years ago, Glasnow was in the early stages of his Tommy John recovery. Last fall, he hustled through the end of his rehab to make two regular-season starts and one dominant, albeit limited, five-inning outing to cap the Rays’ American League Wild Card Series loss in Cleveland. 

But when Glasnow takes the mound this afternoon at Tropicana Field to start Game 1 of Tampa Bay’s AL Wild Card Series against Texas? All systems go. 

“It’s exciting,” Glasnow said Monday afternoon. “Just coming off all the injury stuff, having no limitations is definitely, like, a freeing feeling, for sure. Just back to normal.”

Glasnow will start Game 1 at 3:08 p.m. ET on ABC, with Zach Eflin set to pitch Game 2 on Wednesday, also at 3:08 p.m. ET on ABC. Getting extra rest for Eflin factored into the decision, since he’s coming off a career-high 31 starts and 177 2/3 innings during the regular season, but so did the Rays’ faith in Glasnow. 

“[Glasnow’s] been there, done it,” pitching coach Kyle Snyder said. “We have every bit of confidence in him to be able to go out there, throw 100 pitches and come out of the game with as good a chance to win as anybody.” 

It will be the 30-year-old right-hander’s 82nd start in a Rays uniform and his 10th in the postseason. Nobody questions his ability, from the elite extension that terrifies hitters, to the triple-digit fastball, to his two nasty breaking balls. He’s a more complete pitcher than earlier in his career, having added and altered a slider that sits between his fastball and curveball. 

As Rays GM Peter Bendix said Monday, the “best version of Glasnow is as good as any pitcher in the game.” 

Rays manager Kevin Cash said the club is “very, very confident” in Glasnow, highlighting his last start in Boston (five innings, two hits, one walk, nine strikeouts) and the aforementioned 2022 postseason start (five innings, two hits, five strikeouts) as performances they’d love to bottle up and repeat against the Rangers.

There’s something else, too, that might explain why Glasnow said he felt “really good” physically in early September, even as he approached a number of starts he hadn’t reached since he was a top prospect in Pittsburgh’s system seven years ago.

“I think just having a UCL, it’s more helpful than not having one,” Glasnow quipped, referring to his 2021 Tommy John surgery. “That's been helping me a lot. I think, like, comparing how I feel now to how I'd feel in previous years, it's night-and-day different.”

There is another factor at play, too. When Glasnow sustained a left oblique strain early in Spring Training, it left him frustrated for obvious reasons. He’d worked so hard to come back from his elbow surgery, and another injury was going to keep him out until the end of May. But he found a silver lining.

Snyderreminded Glasnow then that there would be a benefit down the line. When he got back on the mound, and when the games mattered most, he would have no limitations. Glasnow’s injury served as built-in workload management, keeping him to 120 innings over 21 regular-season starts when combined with the back issues that limited him in early August. 

Now, Tampa Bay can turn him loose.

“He and I had talked about it at length throughout spring: As frustrating as that might be, this is going to be the blessing,” Snyder said. “'We're going to be able to let you go.’ That certainly holds true here at the end of the season, and hopefully throughout the month of October.”