The first inning at Tropicana Field had the look of a Tampa Bay night that might get away from Cleveland in a hurry. Yandy Díaz opened the American League Championship Series with a double and a hard clap at second base. Jonathan Aranda followed with the first sacrifice bunt of his career, and Junior Caminero drove in the first run before Jonny DeLuca added another with two outs.
Instead, the Rays walked off their home field carrying a 7-3 Game 1 loss and their first postseason deficit. The early noise from the cowbells and rally towels gave way to a Cleveland comeback, while Tampa Bay’s lineup spent most of the night searching for the next opening.
A fast start, then a missed chance
- Díaz led off the bottom of the first with a double, setting the tone for an aggressive Tampa Bay opening.
- Aranda moved him along with a sacrifice bunt, drawing an animated reaction from the Rays dugout in his first postseason ALCS moment.
- Caminero singled to bring home the game’s first run, and DeLuca later delivered an RBI single for a 2-0 advantage.
- Ben Williamson was hit by a pitch after DeLuca’s hit, loading the bases with two outs and giving the Rays a chance to break the inning wide open.
- Foster Griffin escaped by striking out Taylor Walls on three sweepers. Walls took a high sweeper for strike one, missed another up in the zone, then swung through an 0-2 version that finished below the zone.
That escape changed the shape of the game. Griffin, a left-hander acquired from Washington before the Trade Deadline, had carried a 5.19 ERA across nine starts with Cleveland. Tampa Bay had him on the ropes early, but the Rays did not score again until Cedric Mullins led off the eighth with a home run.
“After that first inning, you get confident,” DeLuca said. “We just need to get more hits and get more runs. But yeah, kudos to them.”
Griffin held Tampa Bay scoreless in the second, third and fourth. Cleveland then turned the game over to five relievers, who covered five innings and allowed only Mullins’ solo shot. The Guardians retired 24 of the final 29 Rays hitters, and no Tampa Bay runner got beyond second after the opening inning apart from the eighth-inning homer.
Caminero and DeLuca also avoided serious injury after a frightening collision, another moment in a game that carried more than one jolt for the home club.
Cleveland’s pitching closes the door
Manager Kevin Cash returned to the first-inning bases-loaded at-bat when considering where the game swung. The Rays have made a habit of adding on when traffic builds, but Griffin’s finish against Walls kept Cleveland close enough to counterpunch.
“We’ve been so good at capitalizing when we’ve got traffic on the bases and creating momentum,” Cash said. “But Griffin made some big pitches.”
The Guardians’ bullpen made the later innings just as uncomfortable. Cash said Tampa Bay will need to manufacture more offense, whether that means grinding out runs or finding another ball to drive over the fence.
“I would like to think that we can put a little bit more offense together, scratch and claw, get a couple more runs or knock a ball out of the ballpark,” Cash said. “They get to their bullpen, their high-leverage arms, and they become very challenging to piece together big innings with.”
Game 2 brings another demanding assignment
The Rays will try to even the ALCS in Game 2 at 8 p.m. ET, with Cleveland left-hander Parker Messick scheduled to start. The challenge will not ease if the series moves on to Game 3 against right-hander Gavin Williams.
| Guardians starter | Regular-season line | Recent postseason work |
|---|---|---|
| Parker Messick | 2.56 ERA in 32 starts during his All-Star rookie season | Allowed four runs in 6 2/3 innings over two AL Division Series appearances against the White Sox |
| Gavin Williams | 3.76 ERA in 32 starts | Struck out 11 in five innings of two-run ball in ALDS Game 2; threw a scoreless inning to finish Game 4; struck out 12 in 5 2/3 scoreless innings in the winner-take-all Game 5 |
Messick and Williams represent a difficult turn in the road, but Tampa Bay’s clubhouse was not treating one loss as a season-defining event. This lineup has scored in different ways all year, and its confidence remains intact despite a Game 1 that got quiet after the first burst.
Caminero put the night in plain terms after Cleveland turned Tampa Bay’s early lead into a 1-0 series edge.
“They scored, and we didn’t do that,” Caminero said through interpreter Kevin Vera. “But we’ll be fine.”
