CLEVELAND -- The Guardians are two wins away from the World Series, setting up a shot to potentially punch their ticket this weekend at home.
Their 3-2 win over the Rays in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series on Thursday came just how they drew it up, built on the back of another brilliant performance by Gavin Williams with one big swing from Petey Halpin, two new Cleveland heroes.
There wasn’t much work getting done in Cleveland on Thursday afternoon, either. Even after the game was moved up from 6 p.m. ET to a 1 p.m. first pitch, Guardians fans packed Progressive Field and were on top of the Rays all afternoon. When Halpin’s go-ahead, two-run shot left his bat in the bottom of the fifth, the stadium was shaking underneath them.
The only person who enjoyed watching that ball fly more than the Guardians’ fans was Halpin himself. After turning on the 96 mph sinker from Griffin Jax, Halpin shuffled backwards out of the box, all the way to the edge of the dirt before he started to jog up the line. When the ball crashed down into the right-field bleachers, Halpin launched his bat into the air, twirling twenty feet above him like a windmill.
“I don’t know, I think I blacked out,” Halpin said when asked about his bat-flip. “I’m not sure what I was doing, to be completely honest. But it was fun.”
This isn’t where the Rays are used to being. It’s not where any of us expected them to be, either.
Tampa Bay led the American League with 98 wins this season and swept the Yankees without even breaking a sweat in the ALDS. Now, they’re staring down Game 4 and Game 5 in Cleveland, facing a Guardians team loaded with momentum and a raucous home crowd.
The Rays were fortunate to scrape across two runs against Williams on a Chandler Simpson triple into the right-field corner, but they’re still waiting on their big bats to change this series. That spotlight on Junior Caminero is growing even brighter now, waiting for the young superstar to step up with his first career postseason home run.
Facing Williams, though, Caminero and the Rays barely stood a chance. The breakout star of the 2026 postseason is on another planet right now. He struck out nine Rays batters over his five innings, giving Williams a whopping 33 Ks over 16 2/3 innings. His postseason strikeout percentage (45.9%) is the highest in MLB history among pitchers who have thrown 10 or more innings, ahead of Corey Knebel (44.6%).
Game 4 is scheduled for Friday at 6 p.m. ET, but with more rain in the forecast, both teams will be preparing backup plans in case there is another scheduling change. In all best-of-seven postseason series tied 1-1, the Game 3 winner has gone on to win the series 71 of 102 times (70%). In series with the current 2-3-2 format, teams that have won Game 3 at home to take a 2-1 lead have gone on to win the series 30 of 49 times (61%).
“Just trust the work, trust the process,” Halpin said. “Keep rolling.”