ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The smart and targeted trade deadline adds made by the Cleveland Guardians drove their victory in the American League Championship Series opener. In Game 2, the similarly clever deals made by the Tampa Bay Rays replied in kind, again showing how organizational depth leveraged in the summer can pay dividends in the fall.
Led by six shutout innings from Freddy Peralta, picked up from the New York Mets for three prospects including Canadian infielder Emilien Pitre, and a two-run single from Toronto-native Liam Hicks, added from the Miami Marlins for three prospects headlined by infielder Brayden Taylor, the AL East champions sent the best-of-seven north tied 1-1 thanks to a 3-1 victory Tuesday night.
A Jose Ramirez error, allowing a two-out Ben Williamson grounder at 84.9 m.p.h. to skip through his legs and Victor Mesa Jr. to score the game’s first run, was pivotal in that fateful fourth, which had been kept alive by Chandler Simpson beating out an infield chopper. Hicks, a .192/.274/.231 hitter versus lefties during the regular season, then timed up a first-pitch slider from Parker Messick for his second straight hit off the all-star southpaw, as a crowd of 32,125 at Tropicana Field roared in joy.
“Being able to play in the playoffs is obviously something pretty special,” said Hicks, a 27-year-old who debuted last season with the Marlins after they picked him from Detroit in the 2024 Rule 5 draft. “Being able to do it with a club like this, I’ve said it a bunch, but they've made me feel like I’ve been a part of this team for so much longer than it's been.
“It's just such a special group and so fun to be part of them.”
The score held there until Peralta’s gem – capped by a fist pump after he struck out Petey Halpin to end the sixth – gave way to the Rays bullpen and the Guardians again created drama. They put on two on against Kevin Kelly before Chase DeLauter’s RBI double off Ian Seymour, but the lefty rallied to strike out Jo Adell, the deadline add from the Los Angeles Angels for double-A catcher Jacob Cozart, whose two-run double in the ninth broke open Game 1, and end that threat.
Seymour then put up a zero in the eighth before all-star Bryan Baker went three-up, three-down in the ninth. Game 3 is scheduled for Thursday evening in Cleveland, the starters for both teams TBD.
“It did feel like a very Rays inning – a mistake goes our way and then we're able to capitalize on it,” manager Kevin Cash said of the fourth. “Liam picked us up in a big way. He had a lot of good at-bats against Messick tonight, who's obviously very tough.”
The Rays and Guardians both often operate creatively at the trade deadline, sometimes using the mid-summer talent swap to turn players approaching the end of their contractual control into future assets, sometimes to add immediate help to support a run.
This year, the path for the Rays was clear as they looked to be comfortably en route to winning the East and without disrupting the top end of their prospect pool, added Peralta to bolster a rotation that faced uncertainty with lefty Shane McClanahan, whose season is now over, extended their lineup with Hicks behind the plate, and deepened their bullpen with Tyler Wells, picked up from Baltimore for pitching prospect Michael Forret.
The trade was Peralta’s second this year, after the Milwaukee Brewers sent the pending free agent to the Mets in January with Tobias Myers – whom the Rays sent to Cleveland back in 2021 for an 18-year-old Junior Caminero – for Brandon Sproat and prospect Jett Williams.
His stint in New York didn’t go well, carrying a 4.99 ERA through 22 starts at the time of the trade, and “I didn't feel good about it,” he said. “But when I got traded here, I just felt different. For some reason I got here and I felt like myself again.”
Maybe even the best version of himself, as Peralta threw the hardest pitch of his career at 99.4 m.p.h, to Adell in the fifth inning, and his average fastball of 96.9 was also a personal best. The Rays have won his last eight starts dating back to Aug. 26, with an 0.81 ERA over that span.
“When I got here, coming to a team in the first place that I didn't do anything to contribute … I was just, like, I've got to do what I've got to do because I want to be part of this,” said Peralta. “And with the help of Kyle (Snyder, the pitching coach), Jorge (Moncada, the bullpen coach) and also Charlie (Valerio), the bullpen catcher, we've been together on this. And I think that they played a huge part of what I have done so far in the Rays uniform.”
Hicks, meanwhile, was enjoying a strong year at the plate in Miami, batting .282/.363/.432 with 14 homers in 101 games, but was splitting between catcher, first base and DH. The Rays, Cash said, “loved the bat,” but with Yandy Diaz at DH and Jonathan Aranda at first base, “we were very much committed to he's going to take the lion's share (behind the plate) for us.”
“We put some thoughtfulness into how we're going to build him up, get his legs underneath him and try to get him up to speed as quick as possible,” he added.
Hicks admitted to being “a little bit nervous” about the transition and needing to learn an entirely new pitching staff in the midst of a playoff race but credited the Rays for making the process “super easy.” Nick Fortes, dealt from the Marlins to Tampa at the 2025 deadline, helped as well, and before long he went from relaying pitches called from the Miami dugout to running games on his own with the Rays.
“Luckily they kept things really simple for me,” said Hicks. “I didn't want to do my own homework and all this stuff and then have them say, hey, that's not important. Kind of came open-minded, whatever they were going to tell me, I'd be willing to do.
“So they told me I was going to catch a lot and hit behind the guys at the top of the lineup. So that's a really good opportunity to drive in some runs. That's been huge. They're very laid back. They really want you to focus on what you're good at and not try and deviate from that. It's been a ton of fun.”
For the Guardians, their path at the deadline was less certain, as they trailed the Chicago White Sox by three games in the AL Central and were a .500 team in a cluttered chase of the final wild card.
Still, they dove in rather than sitting back, adding Nathaniel Lowe, whose go-ahead two-run single in the eighth inning was the difference in Monday’s 7-3 win, Adell and Foster Griffin, who started the opener and allowed two runs in four innings.
“Big moments for those guys. Really cool to see,” said Guardians manager Stephen Vogt. “Coming through for your new team in the post-season is really fun. And you can really supplement your roster really well. We've done that, and they did as well.”
None of those moves were as splashy as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ addition of superstar lefty Tarik Skubal, or even the Boston Red Sox’s trade for catcher Adley Rutschmann. But the trade deadline’s winners and losers are truly defined in October and both the Rays and the Guardians are winning when it counts.
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