The Tampa Bay Rays struck in the first inning and have spent the rest of the night making two runs feel like a mountain. Game 1 of the American League Championship Series at Tropicana Field is tied 2-2 in the eighth inning. The Rays built an early lead behind starter Drew Rasmussen, Cleveland wasted the better of the early chances, and then the Guardians broke through with runs in the sixth and seventh to pull even.
This is Tampa Bay's first ALCS appearance in six years, and the Rays are chasing the first World Series championship in franchise history. Cleveland, meanwhile, arrived the hard way: the Guardians rallied from a 2-0 deficit to beat the Chicago White Sox in five games in the ALDS, capped by a Jose Ramirez home run in Saturday's Game 5. Both teams know how thin the margin is in this round. So far, the difference is one loud first inning and a string of stranded Guardians runners.
Two Runs Before Cleveland Could Breathe
The Rays wasted no time. Yandy Diaz opened the bottom of the first with a double to left field, and Jonathan Aranda moved him to third with a sacrifice bunt. Junior Caminero followed with a single to center that scored Diaz for a 1-0 lead. Victor Mesa Jr. singled to put runners in motion, and Jonny DeLuca delivered another single to center that brought Caminero home and made it 2-0.
Three run-scoring swings, all in the first inning, all against Guardians starter Foster Griffin, who needed 29 pitches to get through the frame, allowed four hits and hit a batter. There is a neat cruelty in the details for Cleveland fans: Caminero was once Guardians property before becoming a star in Tampa Bay, and Diaz is another former Cleveland player. The two ex-Guardians combined to build the lead the current Guardians have been chasing ever since.
Cleveland Has the Hits, Tampa Bay Has the Runs
The odd part of this game is that Cleveland outhit Tampa Bay 6 to 5 through five innings and had nothing to show for it. That finally changed in the sixth, when DeLauter drove a Rasmussen pitch out for a solo home run with nobody out, cutting the lead to 2-1 and giving Cleveland's dugout a jolt. Rasmussen answered by striking out Jo Adell looking. Cleveland kept coming, though, and pushed across the tying run in the seventh to make it 2-2 — reward, at last, for a night of constant traffic on the bases.
The Guardians put two runners on in the very first inning: Ramirez singled on the infield and DeLauter followed with a single of his own. But Ramirez was thrown out trying to steal second, and Adell grounded out against a sharp defensive play by Caminero at third base to end the threat. That pattern held for five innings. Cleveland kept putting the ball in play, kept reaching base, and kept watching innings end one swing short. Rasmussen answered every jam, including a clean top of the fifth in which he struck out Brayan Rocchio and Ramirez, with a Steven Kwan flyout in between.
Photo: Getty Images via Guardians Nation
The Pitching Settled In After the First
To Cleveland's credit, the game could have gotten away early and did not. After the rough first inning, Guardians pitching retired seven straight Rays hitters at one point, and reliever Daniel Espino owned the bottom of the fifth, striking out Diaz, Aranda and Caminero in order. That is no small feat: those are the three hitters who built Tampa Bay's lead, and Espino went through them without a ball leaving the infield.
The question for Cleveland is whether its lineup can give that pitching anything to protect. The Guardians' bullpen kept this a one-swing game, and DeLauter's homer finally rewarded it. In a seven-game series, a Game 1 loss on the road is survivable. Losing a game in which your pitching recovered this well, and your lineup outhit the home team, would be the kind that lingers.
How Both Teams Got Here
Tampa Bay swept the New York Yankees in the ALDS, closing the series with a 4-3 win in Game 3 on October 7, sealed by Mesa Jr.'s tie-breaking two-run homer off Max Fried. The Rays have carried that confidence straight into this series: aggressive early, clean on defense, and comfortable playing close, low-scoring baseball at the Trop. Track the series on our MLB page.
Cleveland's path was the opposite. The Guardians lost the first two games of their ALDS against Chicago, then won three straight elimination games to take the series, with Ramirez homering in the Game 5 clincher on Saturday. Ramirez had a quiet regular season by his standards but erupted in the ALDS with two home runs and seven RBIs. Before this series, Rasmussen himself praised Ramirez as one of the best players in the world. So far in Game 1, Tampa Bay has kept him contained: an infield single, a caught stealing, and a strikeout.
What to Watch the Rest of the Way
One run is nothing in October, and Cleveland has already shown this month that it plays its best baseball with its season on the line. The Guardians need one more crooked inning: Kwan setting the table, Ramirez getting a pitch to drive, and the middle of the order finishing a rally instead of starting one. The Rays, meanwhile, will lean on the formula that has carried them all October: Rasmussen's command, a deep bullpen, and an offense that only needs one more mistake to punish.
Whatever happens late tonight, the turnaround is quick. Game 2 is Tuesday, October 13, back at Tropicana Field, with left-hander Parker Messick scheduled to start for Cleveland. Messick grew up in Plant City, less than an hour from the Trop, and takes the mound in the building where he watched games as a kid. First, though, this game is now a late-inning coin flip, with the winner taking a 1-0 series lead.
Score and details as of publication, with Game 1 still in progress. More baseball is on our Sports front and the Previously news front.
Sources · 1 source
- ESPN game summary (official box score data)
