The Guardians' Trade-Deadline Bets Cashed In One Night: Four Midseason Additions Delivered ALCS Game 1

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.

Front offices make their October arguments in July. On Monday night at Tropicana Field, Cleveland's front office got to watch its argument play out in real time. The Guardians beat the Tampa Bay Rays 7-3 in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, and according to the Akron Beacon Journal, every one of the four trade-deadline additions on Cleveland's ALCS roster — starter Foster Griffin, catcher Patrick Bailey, first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and outfielder Jo Adell — came through in a direct, measurable way.

That is not how Game 1 started. Tampa Bay, the 98-win top seed that swept the New York Yankees in the Division Series, jumped on Griffin for two runs in the first inning. Yandy Díaz doubled to lead off, and RBI singles from Junior Caminero and Jonny DeLuca built a 2-0 lead, according to Reuters. The Rays had four hits in the inning, and for a while the opener looked like it would follow the script of a rested favorite at home: score early, hand the ball to ace Drew Rasmussen, and let the bullpen close the door.

The starter who steadied it

Griffin's contribution was the least glamorous and maybe the most important. After the two-run first, he course-corrected, tossing three scoreless innings before handing the game to the bullpen for the fifth, according to the Beacon Journal. His final line — two runs on five hits over four innings, with three strikeouts — will not lead any highlight package, but it kept a 2-0 game at 2-0 while Rasmussen was dealing. Cleveland's relievers did the rest, allowing one run on two hits across five innings, according to theScore, with Hunter Gaddis earning the win and closer Cade Smith handling the ninth.

On the other side, Rasmussen was excellent until he suddenly was not. The right-hander carried a shutout into the sixth and finished with two runs allowed on eight hits, no walks and seven strikeouts, according to the Sportradar box score. What beat him was not traffic. It was the long ball, twice, on first pitches — and both swings belonged to players who were not Guardians on Opening Day, or in one case, barely Guardians at all a year ago.

DeLauter starts it, Bailey finishes the comeback

Rookie Chase DeLauter opened the sixth by driving a first-pitch fastball from Rasmussen over the wall in left-center for his first career postseason home run, cutting the lead to 2-1, according to Reuters. It was the signature swing of a signature night: DeLauter finished 3-for-4 with a double, a walk and three runs scored, according to the Sportradar box score, and he was on base seemingly every time Cleveland needed a rally to breathe.

Bailey, the deadline addition behind the plate, led off the seventh with a solo home run to center — measured at 436 feet by SportRelay — that tied the game 2-2 and ended Rasmussen's night. According to the Beacon Journal, the homer pushed Bailey's postseason OPS to 1.143, and it was his second home run of these playoffs. A catcher acquired midseason, producing like a middle-of-the-order bat in the biggest games of the year, is exactly the kind of October surplus value contenders dream about when they make those July calls.

Lowe's hit, Adell's exclamation point

The eighth inning turned the game. Ramírez reached on an infield single off Tyler Wells, DeLauter doubled him to third, and after Wells gave way to left-hander Ian Seymour, Lowe — a former Ray who was drafted by Tampa Bay — lined a two-run single to center on an 0-2 pitch to put Cleveland ahead 4-2, according to Reuters. Tampa Bay answered in the bottom half on a solo home run by Cedric Mullins, trimming it to 4-3, according to Sportradar's play-by-play.

The ninth removed the doubt. Ramírez singled home Angel Martínez for a 5-3 lead — his fourth straight playoff game with an RBI, tied for the longest postseason streak in franchise history, according to Reuters — and after DeLauter walked, Adell, the fourth deadline addition, ripped a two-run double that scored both runners and closed the scoring at 7-3. Cleveland finished with 14 hits to Tampa Bay's seven, according to the box score, and scored in the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings after being shut out through the first five — something no team in MLB playoff history had ever done, according to OptaSTATS via theScore.

What it means for the series

The win was Cleveland's fourth straight, a streak that began when the Guardians rallied from a 2-0 series deficit against the Chicago White Sox in the Division Series, according to USA TODAY. It was also Tampa Bay's first loss of the postseason. Afterward, Rays manager Kevin Cash acknowledged the unfamiliar feeling, telling reporters it had been a while since his club lost and that he expected a response in Game 2, according to Reuters. Ramírez, who had three hits of his own, put his night more personally: "Cleveland is everything to me," he said, according to Reuters.

Game 2 is Tuesday in St. Petersburg, with Cleveland turning to Parker Messick and Tampa Bay countering with Freddy Peralta, according to theScore — a matchup we break down in our ALCS Game 2 preview. For the full account of how the opener unfolded inning by inning, see our Game 1 recap, and keep up with the rest of the postseason in Previously Sports and the latest news.

The larger story, though, is the roster. Pennant races are usually decided by the stars a team already has. Game 1 was decided by the players Cleveland went and got — a starter who stopped the bleeding, a catcher who tied it, a first baseman who won it and an outfielder who put it away, with a rookie who arrived last October tying the whole night together. July's bets are cashing in October.