ST. PETERSBURG – The Guardians have landed the first punch in the ALCS, stunning the widely favored Rays with a come-from-behind win in Game 1 at Tropicana Field on Monday night.
The Guardians’ 7-3 win looked so much different for the first six innings, with the Rays in full control and playing their famous, airtight brand of baseball. Once that door cracked open, though, the Guardians burst through with the combination of power and timely hitting that got them here in the first place.
That’s four consecutive wins now for the Guardians, who in the ALDS became just the 11th team to lose the first two games of a best-of-five postseason series but then come back to win it. The Rays are a perennial powerhouse and the top team in the American League by a wide margin coming off a 98-win season, but now they’re the team playing from behind after Game 1.
Home runs from Chase DeLauter and Patrick Bailey initially tied the game for the Guardians, and Bailey’s big swing will be the one held under a microscope until we all move on to Game 2 Tuesday night.
Rays ace Drew Rasmussen was at 90 pitches through six innings and looked excellent outside of DeLauter’s opposite-field shot, but when the Rays chose to bring Rasmussen back out for the seventh, Bailey sent the first pitch he saw 436 feet to right-center, the longest of his MLB career.
“I couldn't be more proud of them,” said Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt. “We got punched early. Our pitching staff, credit to them for stopping it and keeping us in the game as long as they did. The offense came alive. I thought we had great at-bats the whole game. Just couldn't get that one hit with runners in scoring position. Hitting a couple balls out of the yard made it a new game.”
Nathaniel Lowe delivered the big blow, though, with a two-run single up the gut to score DeLauter and José Ramírez in the eighth and finally put the Guardians in front. A three-run Cleveland ninth provided the final margin.
“We can do it,” said Lowe, reaching back for proof in their ALDS win over the White Sox. “We ran into a really hostile environment. I give all the credit to the Chicago fans. They made it as loud as they could. And there were some situations where this group definitely could have folded, but we didn't.”
That swing stole a win from the Rays, who for much of the evening looked like they’d cruise to a win built on all their greatest strengths. The Guardians beat the Rays at their own game, though, even if it took some time to get the game to their sweet spot with a great performance from the bullpen. Behind four innings of two-run ball from Foster Griffin, Daniel Espino, Joey Cantillo, Hunter Gaddis and Erik Sabrowski gave the Guardians one inning of relief each, setting up Cade Smith for the ninth.
Even at an individual level, star versus star, it was a comeback win. Junior Caminero opened the scoring with an RBI single in the first, not long after José Ramírez had been thrown out trying to steal second in the top half. By the end of the night, though, Ramírez had three hits and an RBI. This recent stretch of Guardians magic has Ramírez all over it. He’s in the middle of everything, everywhere, all the time.
“Unbelievable player. Unbelievable player,” said DeLauter, who watches all of Ramírez’s at-bats from the on-deck circle. “Hitting behind him all year has been amazing. Whether he’s feeling good or bad, he shows up every day and outworks everybody. He’s a special player.”
If the Rays are going to land the counterpunch in Game 2, they’ll need one of their own stars to step up. Caminero dodged any serious injury after a collision with left fielder Jonny DeLuca later in the game, so the spotlight shifts back to Tampa’s young MVP candidate Tuesday night.
“We feel good moving forward,” Caminero said through interpreter Kevin Vera. “We’ll wipe away today, and with this group, we always have our heads up. We never have our heads down. We know exactly who we are. We won 98 games for a reason. We won the division for a reason. So we’re going to keep going, leave this one behind and hopefully win tomorrow.”
In a series between such similar organizations, both analytically minded and built around excellent pitching and defense, don’t expect to see any 10-0 blowouts. This series profiles to be tight and tense, which is why it’s incredibly important that the Guardians have stolen at least one game here with Games 3-5 all waiting for them at home in Cleveland.
Perhaps Monday’s loss will shake some rust off of the Rays, too. They just swept the Yankees as the No. 1 seed in the American League, but they haven’t played as much baseball as the Guardians over the past two weeks and they haven’t been on the wrong side of a score since Sept. 27, the final day of the regular season against the Phillies.
“It's been a while since we lost,” manager Kevin Cash said, “so I think that's a good thing, and I know the guys will come back and respond tomorrow.”
No matter how this ALCS shakes out, the American League’s representative in the World Series will be chasing history. The Rays are far younger as an organization, having entered the league in 1998, but have never won the World Series and have been only twice (2008, 2020). The Guardians’ infamous title drought, on the other hand, sits at 77 seasons, the longest in MLB.
In all best-of-seven postseason series, teams that have taken a 1-0 lead have gone on to win the series 127 of 197 times (64%). In series with the current 2-3-2 format, teams that have taken a 1-0 lead on the road have gone on to win the series 41 of 73 times (56%).