ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The longer the American League Championship Series went, the more the deeper roster of the Tampa Bay Rays outlasted the Cleveland Guardians.
Their rotation featured four playoff-calibre starters in ace Drew Rasmussen, Freddy Peralta, who starred in Games 2 and 6 with a timely relief appearance in Game 4, Nick Martinez and Griffin Jax, compared to the 2½ the AL Central champions worked with and couldn’t optimize because of their use versus the Chicago White Sox in a five-game division series.
Their lineup was longer, with regular contributions from Chandler Simpson and Liam Hicks in the middle and Richie Palacios, whose two-run double in the second opened the scoring Monday, and Jonny DeLuca, at the bottom complementing the Big Three of Yandy Diaz, Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero. The Guardians couldn’t sustain the same 1-through-9 pressure.
Tampa Bay’s defence, led by the impeccable Taylor Walls, played tighter, and its bullpen, the one area in which Cleveland held a distinct edge, could be matched up effectively because Rays starters have covered 63 per cent of the team’s post-season innings, compared to 37 per cent for the Guardians.
All that made the Rays deserving American League champions, a 7-3 victory before an electric crowd of 40,230 sending them to the World Series for the third time. They’ll meet the Milwaukee Brewers there, with Game 1 set for Friday at American Family Field, clashing against another analytically driven, financially restrained club that plays a similar style, one of them destined to become a first-time champion.
Peralta, who rebounded his team after a Game 1 loss with six shutout innings in Game 2, pinned the clincher down early while the offence once again ground down the Cleveland staff.
Opener Shawn Armstrong, pitching three days in a row for the first time this season, gave up a Caminero single to begin the second and was replaced by Tim Herrin, also in for a third straight day. After a Simpson fielder’s choice and a Victor Mesa Jr. walk, the Rays duo pulled off a double steal and Palacios, kept alive on a borderline 0-2 curveball check-swing call, ripped a double to right-centre to bring both home.
Caminero walked and scored on DeLuca’s sacrifice fly in the third off Joey Cantillo, and after Nathaniel Lowe’s RBI single in the sixth ended Peralta’s night at 5.1 innings, Caminero lined a two-run shot off all-star Cade Smith, pitching for the fourth time in the series and ninth time in the playoffs, in the seventh to really open the game up.
Cleveland scratched out a pair charged to Tyler Wells after Ian Seymour walked Patrick Bailey and hit Angel Martinez with the bases loaded in the eighth, but Diaz took Hunter Gaddis deep after a Walls walk in the bottom half to restore the lead.
Bryan Baker, also pitching three in a row, handled the ninth.
The Guardians used eight pitchers to get through Game 6 after a planned bullpen day in Game 4 and a de facto one in Game 5 when Parker Messick needed 57 pitches to get through two innings. Manager Stephen Vogt said they “talked through all the different scenarios, all the different strategies, how do we want to start this game off, and with the way Shawn's been throwing the ball, it was a no-brainer to have him kick it off.”
Barring a traditional start for Cantillo or turning to Tanner Bibee, who had only thrown 15 pitches in one Oct. 8 outing all playoffs, he didn’t have many options, either and while Gavin Williams would have been lined up for a Game 7, they would have had little more than dudes on fumes behind him.
In contrast, Peralta, at 12, and Rasmussen, at 13, covered 47 per cent of the Rays’ innings by themselves, a big reason why the Rays’ spectacular season continues.
They won the American League East at 98-64, then swept the New York Yankees in the division series before handling the pesky Guardians in six, all after a last-place finish a year ago.
“I thought this team really came together about as well as you could in the spring-training setting, given the roster turnover that took place. There were a lot of new faces. And you could sense it was a pretty close-knit group,” said Rays manager Kevin Cash. “We went on a pretty good run. We got back home, created a little bit of a home-field advantage here, where we won a bunch of games. And they continued to be really close throughout the entire season, definitely throughout the summer.
“And any challenges along the way, I think they were handled incredibly well. Coming out of the all-star break, getting swept by Boston did not derail this group at all. You're looking at a divisional opponent that's getting hot, and they were as hot as any team in baseball. And we got beat. We weren't beating ourselves. We got beat. But that didn't change the mindset. There was no panic. They just stayed at it.”
All the way to the World Series, and the chance to even more.
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