ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The Cleveland Guardians used small ball, the long ball, and played solid all-around baseball to keep winning in the postseason.<\/p>\n
Nathaniel Lowe snapped an eighth-inning tie with a two-run single after Chase DeLauter and Patrick Bailey homered off Drew Rasmussen, and the Guardians rallied past the Tampa Bay Rays 7-3 in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series on Monday night.<\/p>\n
After losing the first two games at home to the Chicago White Sox in their AL Division Series, Cleveland has won four straight in the postseason for the first time since winning their first six playoff games in 2016 on the way to a World Series berth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels good to see some balls fall, to see some guys get on the barrel, to see some guys have some great at-bats, because the first two games of the White Sox series, we got beat. We did,\u201d Lowe said. \u201cWe had to go get our backs against the wall and do something crazy, and this group did. It\u2019s nice to feel some momentum coming here and to take Game 1.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jose Ram\u00edrez had three hits and DeLauter was a triple shy of the cycle as the Guardians banged out 14 hits against a Tampa Bay staff that allowed just 12 in its Division Series against the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n
Junior Caminero and Jonny DeLuca had RBI singles in the first and Cedric Mullins hit a solo homer for the Rays, who never trailed in their three-game sweep of the Yankees.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a while since we lost, so I think that\u2019s a good thing, and I know the guys will come back and respond tomorrow,\u201d Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said.<\/p>\n
Game 2 is Tuesday night at Tropicana Field. Rookie left-hander Parker Messick starts for Cleveland, and right-hander Freddy Peralta takes the mound for the Rays.<\/p>\n
Five relievers combined for five innings of one-run, two-hit ball for the Guardians, who became only the 11th team to overcome an 0-2 deficit in a best-of-five playoff series with a victory over the White Sox on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Cade Smith, who pitched in all five games against Chicago, tossed a perfect ninth.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously we came off an emotional series, had a quick turnaround. But these guys come ready to play every day. Couldn\u2019t be more proud of them,\u201d Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt said. \u201cWe got punched early. And our pitching staff, credit to them, for stopping it and keeping us in the game as long as they did. And the offense came alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rasmussen took a 2-0 lead into the sixth before DeLauter led off with an opposite-field homer to left-center. Bailey started the seventh with a towering shot to center that went a projected 436 feet, ending Rasmussen\u2019s night.<\/p>\n
Rasmussen carried a no-hitter into the eighth in Game 1 of the ALDS against the Yankees.<\/p>\n
Ram\u00edrez opened the eighth with an infield single off Tyler Wells, and DeLauter ripped a double to right. After Wells retired Jo Adell on a grounder to second, Ian Seymour entered. Lowe lined an 0-2 pitch up the middle to drive in two, giving Cleveland a 4-2 lead.<\/p>\n
Lowe made his major league debut with Tampa Bay in 2019 and won a World Series with Texas in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love coming back here, I really do,\u201d Lowe said. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see some familiar faces on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mullins connected off Erik Sabrowski for a solo shot in the bottom half.<\/p>\n
Ram\u00edrez, whose two-run home run\u00a0lifted Cleveland to a 2-0 win in Game 5 against the White Sox, provided an insurance run with an RBI single in the ninth off Cole Sulser.<\/p>\n
Ram\u00edrez then helped the Guardians get two more by breaking for third with two outs and two strikes on Adell. Caminero ran to cover the bag and was out of position when Adell hit a sharp grounder toward third. The ball rolled into left field for a two-run double.<\/p>\n
A crowd of 35,361 fans waved yellow rally towels and rang cowbells at the Trop as Tampa Bay made its third ALCS appearance in the franchise\u2019s 29-season history.<\/p>\n
They were fired up when the 98-win Rays jumped ahead 2-0 in the first and Rasmussen battled to keep it there until the sixth.<\/p>\n
Coming off that dominant performance against the Yankees, Rasmussen went six-plus tough innings. The two-time All-Star right-hander, who was four outs from a no-hitter in a 1-0 victory against New York, allowed a hit to the second batter he faced and eight total, striking out seven.<\/p>\n
Guardians starter Foster Griffin gave up two runs and five hits in four innings.<\/p>\n
Glove work<\/p>\n
The Rays helped Rasmussen with outstanding defense.<\/p>\n
Nick Fortes threw out Ram\u00edrez trying to steal second in the first. Caminero made an excellent play to retire Adell on a hard bouncer to third. Caminero short-hopped the ball with his backhand and fired a strong throw to first.<\/p>\n
The Guardians had a runner on first with one out in the third when second baseman Ben Williamson robbed DeLauter of a hit that prevented a first-and-third jam. Williamson, who wasn\u2019t on the ALDS roster, made a diving grab on DeLauter\u2019s sharp grounder, got up and threw him out.<\/p>\n
Stranded runners<\/p>\n
Rays slick-fielding shortstop Taylor Walls was 0 for 3 and left six runners on base. He struck out with the bases loaded to end the first, lined out with a runner on in the fourth and grounded out with runners on first and second to end the sixth.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Messick took the loss in Game 1 of the AL Division Series, allowing two runs over 4 1\/3 innings. He threw 2 1\/3 innings in relief during a Game 4 victory, giving up two runs. Messick had 11 strikeouts in the two appearances. He was 12-9 with a 2.56 ERA in the regular season.<\/p>\n
Peralta allowed one run and three hits over 4 2\/3 innings in Game 2 of the Division Series vs. the Yankees. He was 5-2 with a 3.25 ERA in 10 starts after joining Tampa Bay at the trade deadline. Peralta was 5-9 with a 4.99 ERA for the Mets this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The Cleveland Guardians used small ball, the long ball, and played solid all-around baseball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[167654,166544,48422,109161,3820,138647,163001,161020,135,3815,137,136],"class_list":["post-426345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-al-championship-series","tag-alcs","tag-cedric-mullins","tag-chase-delauter","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-jose-ramirez","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426345","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=426345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}