The Guardians did everything they could Sunday to scratch out a win in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, including great defensive plays and an incredible bullpen performance. But they just could not score against Rays ace Drew Rasmussen and the relievers behind him, including a still-dominant Bryan Baker, who closed out a 3-1 Tampa Bay victory.
Now the Rays are one game away from their third World Series appearance. They won’t have to wait long for their shot at it -- due to the Game 4 rainout pushing everything back, there is no off-day before Monday’s Game 6 at Tropicana Field.
Here are three key questions for that game, which will either settle the 2026 World Series matchup … or set us up for a Game 7.
ALCS Game 6: Guardians at Rays (TB ahead 3-2)
8 p.m. ET, TBS/HBO Max
SP: TBA (CLE) vs. Freddy Peralta (TB)
Is Guards Ball running out of gas?
For all the talk of "Guards Ball" -- ideally, scoring runs through contact, smart baserunning and timely clutch hitting, in lieu of hitting long home runs -- the biggest moment of this series for the Guardians was Petey Halpin’s two-run, bat-flipping home run in Game 3. Since then, the pilot light on this offense has been out. Since that homer, the Guardians have scored four runs in two games, with the only one they scored on Sunday coming from a groundout.
It’s fine if you want to generate runs in ways outside the homer, but the Guardians are not doing that or homering. They got some truly heroic bullpen work on Sunday, but it didn’t matter because they couldn’t score. Sure, they were facing Rasmussen, one of the best starters in the league. But all these Rays pitchers are good: That’s why they’re pitching in the ALCS after all. The Guardians keep hitting the gas pedal and not going anywhere. If they don’t get some juice going soon, they’re going to be going back home.
How can Vogt piece together a pitching plan for Game 6?
It really was impressive how excellent the Guardians bullpen was on Sunday night after the Rays scored a run in each of the first three innings, with two of those charged to starter Parker Messick. It’s tough to have much argument with how manager Stephen Vogt deployed his relievers. He went with an all-hands-on-deck approach, even going to closer Cade Smith down two runs in the eighth. It did work, in that it kept the Guardians in the game and gave them a chance to win.
But because the offense stalled out, those runs in the first three innings were all the Rays would need. So that made the loss a bit of a double whammy for Cleveland: Vogt used his best relievers to keep a game close that still ended in a loss, and now he has to win two more games in two days (after traveling from Ohio to Florida) while cobbling together 27 outs in each. Vogt is in an awfully unenviable position, and while you can give him credit for pulling all the right levers, eventually, he’s going to run out of levers.
Vogt said after Game 5 that he did not yet know the pitching plan for Game 6, other than that Gavin Williams, the team’s best starter in this postseason, is “not an option” to go on short rest. That does Williams would be available in Game 7 … but first, Vogt has to figure out how to get there.
Is this The Trop’s moment?
Tropicana Field has not always been known as the most beloved of big league ballparks. If you’ve ever been there, you know it’s a great place to watch a game, but it’s fair to say it has never necessarily been thought of among baseball’s grandest cathedrals. But there’s no question that the year the Rays were away from The Trop as it underwent repairs in the wake of Hurricane Milton in October 2024 made everyone’s heart grow fonder. The Rays were tied with the NL-champion Brewers for the best home record in baseball this year, going 55-26 during the regular season. They’re 3-1 there in the postseason, and the place has been as loud as it has ever been during these playoffs.
And now, after the building sat dormant for a season, it has a chance to be welcomed back by being the place the Rays clinch the third trip to the World Series in franchise history … with a very real chance to maybe even win their first one ever. (Against a team, as it turns out, also trying to win their first one ever.) The last time the Rays clinched a pennant, they did it as the home team – but also not at The Trop. (The game was played during the COVID-affected 2020 postseason.)
This Rays team was predicted by many people -- including me! Not just me. But definitely me -- to finish last in the American League East. (It does make me feel better that I was far from the only one.) And here they are, one game away from the World Series. There’s no place they’d rather do it, and are better set up to do it, than at home, at The Trop.