CLEVELAND — Drew Rasmussen allowed one run over seven innings for his second postseason win, Tampa Bay’s offense saved on fixed stress and the Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians 3-1 Sunday evening to take a 3-2 lead within the AL Championship Sequence.
The Rays will attempt to seize their third AL pennant and first since 2020 on Monday at Tropicana Discipline in St. Petersburg, Florida. Because the ALCS expanded to seven video games in 1985, highway groups successful Recreation 5 for a 3-2 lead have received the sequence 4 of 5 instances.
Recreation 7 if wanted can be Tuesday, and the World Sequence begins Friday at NL champion Milwaukee.
Cleveland has not received an ALCS when trailing 3-2.
Tampa Bay scored single runs in every of the primary three innings, the primary two off Parker Messick and the third in opposition to Tim Herrin.
Rasmussen shut down the Guardians’ offense after permitting two runs over six innings within the opener. After Chase DeLauter’s two-out single within the first, the 31-year-old right-hander retired 9 straight batters and allowed just one different baserunner via the sixth.
Rasmussen gave up 4 hits, walked one and struck out six. He’s 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA in three postseason begins, putting out 23 and strolling three.
Cam Booser and Tyler Wells labored the eighth, with Wells putting out José Ramírez to strand a runner.
Bryan Baker got here in for the ninth and transformed his thirty fifth straight save probability, his fifth of this postseason. Jo Adell was on second base when Travis Bazzana hit a game-ending groundout.
Steven Kwan had two of Cleveland’s 5 hits and made two advantageous defensive performs: He threw out Taylor Partitions making an attempt to attain from second base on Jonathan Aranda’s fourth-inning single to left and made a leaping catch on the center-field wall on Victor Mesa Jr.'s eighth-inning drive, saving a run.
Tampa Bay’s leadoff hitter reached base within the first 4 innings — scoring within the first three frames — and 6 instances general. Rays’ leadoff batters have reached in 10 of 14 innings relationship to Saturday.
Yandy Díaz had three hits whereas Aranda and Liam Hicks each had two hits and drove in a run.
Díaz scored on a bases-loaded stroll by Messick to Jonny DeLuca within the first inning. Díaz led off with a line-drive double over heart fielder Petey Halpin that rolled to the wall.
Aranda’s single drove in Ben Williamson for a 2-0 lead within the second, and Hicks looped a curveball from Herrin to heart to attain Chandler Simpson within the third.
Cleveland lastly threatened within the seventh when Kwan and Ramírez singled to place runners on the corners and DeLauter grounded an RBI single between first and second.
Messick had the shortest outing of his huge league profession and didn’t make it previous the third inning for the second time in 4 postseason begins. The 25-year-old left-hander went two innings and allowed two runs, 5 hits and three walks over two innings, throwing simply 34 of 57 pitches for strikes.