{"id":353162,"date":"2026-07-26T21:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T21:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/353162\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T21:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T21:59:11","slug":"rays-hold-guardians-to-one-hit-complete-three-game-sweep-with-1-0-victory-news-herald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/353162\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays hold Guardians to one hit, complete three-game sweep with 1-0 victory \u2013 News-Herald"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By ERIK ERLENDSSON<\/p>\n<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Drew Rasmussen allowed one hit through seven innings, Cedric Mullins drove in the only run of the game on a bunt single and the Tampa Bay Rays finished off a three-game sweep of the Guardians with a 1-0 victory on July 26.<\/p>\n<p>Rasmussen (9-5) allowed a leadoff double to Steven Kwan to start the game before retiring 21 of the final 23 batters he faced, including the last 12. Rasmussen struck out nine and walked one.<\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay blanked its opponent for the eighth time this season, earning its second 1-0 win against Cleveland in 2026. The other was on April 28.<\/p>\n<p>The game finished in 1 hour, 58 minutes, the fourth game in the majors this season to be completed in under two hours.<\/p>\n<p>Parker Messick (8-6) allowed six hits and struck out six, allowing one run in 7 2\/3 innings for Cleveland, which has lost five consecutive games. The Guardians were limited to three runs total in the series as Tampa Bay finished the series with back-to-back shutouts. Garrett Cleavinger pitched a scoreless eighth before Bryan Baker converted his 17th consecutive save and 28th overall after striking out Brayan Rocchio with the tying run on first to end the game.<\/p>\n<p>The AL East-leading Rays improved to 38-15 at home this season.<\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay scored the only run of the game after Chandler Simpson led off the fifth with a single to left, advanced to second on a wild pitch, moved to third when Ben Williamson grounded to second then came home on Mullins\u2019 bunt single.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p>Cleveland opens a series at Cincinnati on July 27 with RHP Slade Cecconi (4-7, 4.60 ERA) scheduled for the Guardians against RHP Chase Burns (12-1, 2.42 ERA). The Guardians need two victories to reclaim the Ohio Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay hosts Texas starting July 28 with the pitching matchup TBA for both teams.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"Manager Stephen Vogt comes out to remove Parker Messick during the eighth inning of the Guardians' loss to the Rays on July 26 in St. Petersburg, Florida. ( Mike Carlson\/Getty Images)\" width=\"3500\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TNH-L-Guardians-Messick-0726.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"2242929\" \/>Manager Stephen Vogt comes out to remove Parker Messick during the eighth inning of the Guardians&#8217; loss to the Rays on July 26 in St. Petersburg, Florida. ( Mike Carlson\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By ERIK ERLENDSSON ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Drew Rasmussen allowed one hit through seven innings, Cedric Mullins drove&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3820,3817,110,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-353162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}