CLEVELAND -- Back and forth goes the ALCS, which is now a best-of-three series after the Rays tied it up with a 7-3 win Saturday night at Progressive Field.
After Friday’s rainout pushed Game 4 back a day, the Rays had an extra 24 hours to chew on their series deficit, an unexpected spot for the top team in the American League. With Saturday’s win, though, the Rays guarantee that this series will shift back to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg for Game 6 on Monday.
“It means a lot because we've heard it all season long and we know that we play well at home in front of our home fans,” said Rays manager Kevin Cash. “We've got a huge game, another swing game tomorrow, which [Parker] Messick is pitching for them. That should be quite the pitching matchup. But it is nice to guarantee a game back there for our fans to see.”
The big three atop the Rays’ lineup have awoken, too, and there’s nothing scarier for the Guardians. Jonathan Aranda drove in a pair and Yandy Díaz put the game on ice in the ninth with a two-run shot to the opposite field, but it all started with Junior Caminero, who has finally announced his arrival in the ALCS.
Caminero’s RBI double into the left-field corner in the sixth inning was another rocket, 110.2 mph off his bat and over the head of a leaping José Ramírez. It felt like Caminero was finally due after he launched a deep fly ball to the base of the wall in center field earlier in the game, which felt like a home run until the second it crashed into the glove of Petey Halpin, who looked just as surprised as the rest of us.
That fly ball from Caminero was the 265th batted ball at 110.0-110.9 mph and a 28-30 degree launch angle under Statcast, including the postseason. The other 264 were all home runs. What a cruel fate for Caminero, whose ball flew through the frigid air to the deepest corner of this massive outfield, but he was still due.
Standing on second base after driving the go-ahead run in the sixth, bundled in layers to fight the Cleveland cold, Caminero was brash and defiant. He stood atop the bag, furiously beating his chest with both fists as he howled back toward his own dugout. He’s the type of hitter who can change a game in an instant. He’s the type of player who can bring the Rays their first World Series.
“I feel good, especially because we're winning. That's how we play right now,” Caminero said. “You asked me the last game about the four strikeouts, and look at today. That's about the baseball. So I’m feeling good today and trying to help the team.”
The Guardians rallied in the seventh, including a Travis Bazzana home run and an RBI single from Brayan Rocchio, but they’d let the Rays build too much of a lead by then, including three runs in the top half of that same inning, featuring an RBI single off the bat of Aranda that plated a second run thanks to an error.
“Everybody clicked, and it was just a matter of time, right?” said Aranda, through club interpreter Kevin Vera. “It was just a matter of time for us three to get going, and you know, it's something that we can really use to push us forward here in these next couple games. But look, you know, today's a great day. We won the game, but you know, job's not done. There's a handful of games left to be played, a handful of games left to be won, and you know we can use this to motivate us and move forward into the rest of the series.”
Steven Kwan, encapsulating that gritty brand of “Guards Ball,” even busted his lip on a slide into first base trying to keep that seventh inning alive, and came out late for the next frame with gauze packed in his mouth.
Rays starter Nick Martinez was excellent, in full control of this game. Martinez had thrown 13 scoreless innings against the Guardians this season and kept his foot on the gas this time, burning through 5 1/3 innings of one-run ball, the only damage coming on a Chase DeLauter RBI single in the first.
This is what the rest of the ALCS is expected to look like. It’s airtight baseball between two teams that were built in the same factory, both so similar in their styles and philosophies. This is why it feels so glaring and insurmountable when the odd mistake is made, like when DeLauter allowed a ball to slip under his glove in the seventh inning and roll deep into the outfield, bringing home an extra run.
“This is the ALCS. We obviously would have loved to have taken tonight, but we still have a three-game series ahead of us against a really good team,” said Guardians manager Stephen Vogt. “And I anticipate it going down to the wire. That's the way these two teams are.”
A 2-2 tie in the ALCS isn’t about to shake the Guardians, though. This is the team that was down 0-2 to the White Sox in the ALDS, and look at them now, still just two wins from the World Series.
“We’ve been in situations where it gets tough, where it gets tighter and it gets harder a little closer to the end of the season,” Bazzana said. “You’ve just got to fight for that next win.”
All hands are on deck now, too. Rays starter Freddy Peralta, who was dominant in Game 2 of this series, came on in relief of Martinez. The Guardians will start Messick in Game 5 on Sunday at Progressive Field, scheduled for 5:08 p.m. ET, while the Rays will counter with Drew Rasmussen.
In all best-of-seven postseason series with the current 2-3-2 format that have been tied after Game 4, the team playing Game 5 on the road (before going home for Games 6 and 7) has gone on to win the series 35 of 62 times (56%). In any best-of-series tied 2-2, the Game 5 winner goes on to take the series 46 of 69 times (67%).