Guardians vs. Rays ALCS Game 1 picks Monday: Tampa Bay appears to have nearly every opening advantage

The Cleveland Guardians haven't won a World Series since 1948, the longest drought in MLB, while the Tampa Bay Rays have never won it all. They meet in Game 1 of the ALCS tonight from St. Petersburg in their third all-time postseason matchup – the series winner will be an underdog in the Fall Classic against either the Dodgers or Brewers.

Bet $5+ on any of today's MLB games to get $200 in bonus bets at DraftKings Sportsbook: It's an 8 p.m. ET start time from Tropicana Field, and I suppose if there's one good thing we can say about the Trop it's that we don't have to worry about weather. At -169 via DraftKings, Tampa Bay is taking 54% of handle and 93% of wagers.

There is split action on the total of 6.5. On the series line, the Rays are -165 and Guardians +135 and I favor Tampa Bay in probably six. That happens to be the +370 exact result favorite.

Fans can try MLB betting on the best sports betting apps and get bonuses. The SportsLine Projection Model also has picks on games like Guardians-Rays from its 10,000 simulations, and our experts also offer insights on games every day. FanDuel: SGP price: +107 (subject to change) One really interesting storyline here is what could have been for the Guardians.

Every team in the major leagues has made numerous bad trades in their history, but boy did Cleveland get robbed, as it turned out, in November 2021 when it traded 18-year-old prospect Junior Caminero to Tampa Bay for mediocre reliever Tobias Myers. He was a scrub for the Mets this year while Caminero is a rising superstar who looks like a future AL MVP after finishing second in the AL with 42 homers in the regular season. The Guardians' regular-season leader was Angel Martinez with only 18 bombs.

The Rays were 5-1 in the season series (3-0 at home) but three of the six were decided by a run, including two 1-0 Tampa Bay wins. Caminero was pretty quiet in batting .182 with no homers and two RBI. They have split their two playoff meetings, with Tampa Bay taking the 2013 AL Wild-Card Game and Cleveland winning the 2022 AL WC Series in a two-game sweep.