Rays Win the Pennant: Tampa Bay Beats Cleveland 7-3 in Game 6 to Reach the World Series

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Yandy Díaz guaranteed it after Game 5: “We’re going to win tomorrow.” On Monday night at Tropicana Field, the Tampa Bay Rays made their leadoff man a prophet. The Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians 7-3 in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series, taking the series four games to two and winning the American League pennant for the third time in franchise history. Junior Caminero and Díaz each hit two-run homers, Freddy Peralta outlasted a Cleveland lineup built to grind him down, and by the time Bryan Baker got Chase DeLauter to pop out for the final out, a crowd of 40,230 had turned the Trop into the loudest room in baseball.

A fast start, and a building that believed

Tampa Bay wasted no time. In the second inning, Richie Palacios — who began his career with Cleveland — laced a two-run double into the right-center field gap, scoring Victor Mesa Jr. and Chandler Simpson. An inning later, Jonny DeLuca’s sacrifice fly made it 3-0, and the Rays were rolling behind the kind of relentless, station-to-station pressure that defined their 98-win season. Cleveland scratched one back in the sixth, when DeLauter led off with a double and Nathaniel Lowe singled him home up the middle, but the early damage was the game: the Guardians spent the rest of the night chasing a lead they never caught.

Peralta, on one day of rest, again

The winning pitcher was the story of the series. Peralta rebounded from Tampa Bay’s Game 1 loss with six shutout innings in Game 2, came out of the bullpen in Game 4, and then took the ball for the clincher on one day of rest. He lasted 5 1/3 innings, allowing one run on five hits and three walks with three strikeouts, climbing the ladder with his fastball while Cleveland kept chasing it. Across three ALCS appearances — two starts and the relief cameo — Peralta went 2-0 and allowed one run in 12 innings, with nine strikeouts. For a Guardians team that had survived on depth and chaos all October, there was simply no cracking him.

Caminero’s moment

It was still 3-1 in the seventh, close enough for the building to hold its breath, when the night found its image. Liam Hicks walked, and Junior Caminero — 23 years old, 42 home runs in the regular season, and still looking for his first of this postseason — ambushed the first pitch from Cade Smith, turning on a splitter that ran in on his hands and pulling it down the left-field line. The ball clanged off the foul pole: a two-run homer, 5-1, and the first postseason home run of Caminero’s career. He slapped his chest emphatically before reaching first base, took nearly 40 seconds to round the bases, and posed at home plate with his arms folded — a nod to former Rays slugger Randy Arozarena, who was watching from the crowd. As ESPN’s Jeff Passan put it on X: “This is how you celebrate a home run in a game that could send you to the World Series. Junior Caminero is ready.”

The eighth-inning scare

Cleveland did not go quietly. In the top of the eighth, DeLauter reached on an infield single and Lowe singled with two outs, and reliever Ian Seymour lost the strike zone at the worst possible moment: a walk to load the bases, a bases-loaded walk to Patrick Bailey that forced in a run, and a hit batter that forced in another. Suddenly it was 5-3, the bases were still loaded, and the pennant was one swing from slipping away. Manager Kevin Cash went to Kevin Kelly, and Kelly struck out Brayan Rocchio on three pitches to strand all three runners and end the threat. It was the Guardians’ last real chance — and everyone in the building knew it.

Díaz kept his word

The bottom of the eighth supplied the exclamation point. Taylor Walls drew a one-out walk, and Díaz — the franchise leader in postseason games played, and for the second time in three games the author of a late two-run dagger — turned on a Hunter Gaddis pitch and drove it over the left-field wall. 7-3. The guarantee was fulfilled, the lead was restored to four, and Baker handled the ninth without drama: groundouts from Steven Kwan and José Ramírez, then DeLauter’s pop-up, and the Rays poured out of the dugout as American League champions for the first time since 2020.

A World Series with history guaranteed

Tampa Bay’s first two trips to the Fall Classic ended in defeat — in five games to Philadelphia in 2008 and in six to the Dodgers in 2020. The third begins Friday night, October 23, at 8 p.m. ET at American Family Field, against a Milwaukee Brewers club that swept the two-time defending champion Dodgers in the NLCS and posted the best record in baseball at 103-59. The Brewers won two of three from the Rays in a regular-season series played March 30 to April 1, and their only previous World Series appearance came in 1982, when they lost to St. Louis in seven games. One of these franchises is about to win its first championship: as FOX Sports noted, this is the first World Series since Phillies–Royals in 1980 guaranteed a first-time winner. Games 3, 4 and, if necessary, 5 bring the series back to Tropicana Field — which will host World Series baseball for the first time since 2008. Our sports front has the full Fall Classic picture, and the Stats Hub will track the matchup all week.