Guards head home with series tied after costly error on Rays' turf

ST. PETERSBURG -- It’s a play Guardians third baseman José Ramírez has made countless times. It’s a play he makes 99.99 percent of the time, even.

But that 0.01 percent? It reared its ugly head in the fourth inning of Game 2 of the American League Championship Series on Tuesday, and loomed large in the Guardians’ 3-1 loss to the Rays at Tropicana Field.

The two-out ground ball off the bat of Ben Williamson skipped under Ramírez’s glove and through his legs. An unearned run scored on the error, and Tampa Bay tacked on another two unearned runs moments later as part of a decisive frame against Guardians starter Parker Messick.

The Rays evened this best-of-seven series 1-1, as it now shifts to Progressive Field for Games 3-5, beginning Thursday.

“It's frustrating,” Ramírez said through team interpreter Agustin Rivero. “Nobody's perfect, but I still feel bad because obviously I wasn't able to do it, and after that, the runs came in. I feel bad about it.”

Ramírez’s mistake loomed large, though the Guardians also went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position, left nine men on base and couldn’t get anything going against Freddy Peralta. The right-hander allowed just four singles, two walks and a hit-by-pitch over six scoreless innings.

But if these teams are as evenly matched from a style-of-play perspective as many made them out to be entering this series, the Guardians can't afford to beat themselves. After an exciting 7-3 comeback win in Game 1 on Monday, they did just that in Game 2.

Messick walked Junior Caminero to lead off the fourth, but retired him on a Victor Mesa Jr. fielder’s choice. Messick struck out Jonny DeLuca, and Chandler Simpson extended the inning by legging out an infield single on a high chopper to shortstop Brayan Rocchio that seemed to hang in the air forever.

Williamson stepped to the plate and worked a 2-1 count. Messick threw him a changeup below the zone that Williamson beat into the ground. Ramírez squared up to field the one-hopper rather than charge it.

The ball skipped off the lip of the infield turf and went five-hole. Mesa scored. Liam Hicks lined Messick’s next pitch to right-center field for a two-run single.

Ramírez said Williamson’s ball took a bit of an unexpected bounce.

“It’s a little bit faster here on this type of surface,” Ramírez said. “I was playing parallel to the base, and the ball bounced right on the edge between the dirt and the turf. That's what made it more difficult for me. I tried to knock it down.”

It wasn’t the first time we’ve seen a Guardians fielder misplay a ball on the turf this series. Yandy Díaz hit a 114.6 mph liner to left fielder Steven Kwan to lead off the bottom of the first in Game 1. Kwan positioned himself to field the ball. He ended up stabbing at the air as it soared past him, as Díaz ended up with a double.

“It's kind of inconsistent whether it's going to hop or skip,” Kwan said of the turf. “Especially when you don't play on it every day, you're just not calibrated to it -- especially that cutoff between turf and dirt. It's not the same as grass to dirt. So that just makes it more difficult.”

The little things were adding up on the Guardians before Ramírez’s error. Mesa reached on a forceout that was initially ruled a 4-6-3 double play. The Rays challenged, and replay showed Rocchio’s throw pulled first baseman Nathaniel Lowe off the bag.

Who knows how the inning would have played out if the Guardians cashed that double play, but DeLuca’s ensuing strikeout could have been the third out. The Guardians paid for Mesa reaching immediately; on Simpson’s chopper, Ramírez drifted toward Rocchio at shortstop. It left third base unoccupied, and Mesa never stopped running and reached third safely.

Messick picked up a tough-luck loss in the ballpark he frequented growing up, allowing just the three unearned runs on six hits and two walks over five innings. An RBI double by Chase DeLauter in the seventh accounted for Cleveland's only offense.

Game 2 was a missed opportunity for the Guardians to take a commanding lead in this series.

In all best-of-seven series with the current 2-3-2 format, teams that have split the first two games at home still have gone on to win the series 50 of 90 times (56%). In all best-of-seven series tied 1-1, the Game 3 winner has gone on to win the series 71 of 102 times (70%).

As the Guardians head back to Cleveland, they like the opportunity that lies ahead.

“Today we just gave them too many chances to take control of the game,” Messick said. “If we play clean baseball the rest of the way, I think we have a really good shot.”

“Going home 1-1, to go have three games in front of our fans in Cleveland, we feel really good about that,” manager Stephen Vogt said. “We're excited to get it going.”