The American League Championship Series has tightened into a three-game sprint after Tampa Bay’s 7-3 Game 4 victory over Cleveland on Saturday night at Progressive Field. Friday’s rainout gave the Rays an extra day to sit with a series deficit, but they answered with their lineup finally showing some teeth, Nick Martinez giving them a firm start and a ninth-inning Yandy Díaz homer putting the finishing touch on a road win.
Rays bring the series even with a late push
Tampa Bay will return to St. Petersburg for Game 6 on Monday after drawing even at two games apiece. The immediate work, though, remains in Cleveland: Game 5 is set for Sunday at 5:08 p.m. ET, with Parker Messick scheduled to start for the Guardians against Rays right-hander Drew Rasmussen.
Kevin Cash said securing a game at Tropicana Field mattered to his club, which has played well at home and wants its fans involved in this series. Still, the manager kept the focus on the next swing game and the challenge presented by Messick.
- The Rays won Game 4, 7-3, at Progressive Field.
- The ALCS is tied 2-2 and has become a best-of-three matchup.
- Game 5 remains in Cleveland on Sunday.
- Game 6 will be played Monday at Tropicana Field.
- Freddy Peralta, Tampa Bay’s strong Game 2 starter, worked in relief after Martinez departed.
The numbers favor the club that takes Game 5, but not by enough to make anybody comfortable. In best-of-seven postseason series using the current 2-3-2 format, road teams winning Game 5 before returning home for Games 6 and 7 have captured 35 of 62 series, or 56%. Across all postseason series tied 2-2, the Game 5 winner has gone on to win 46 of 69 times, a 67% rate.
Caminero’s big swing changes the middle innings
Junior Caminero supplied the jolt Tampa Bay had been waiting for. After a deep drive earlier in the game died in center field at the glove of Petey Halpin, Caminero came back in the sixth and ripped an RBI double into the left-field corner. The ball left his bat at 110.2 mph, sailed beyond a leaping José Ramírez and put the Rays ahead.
His earlier near-homer carried an especially strange footnote. It was the 265th tracked batted ball with an exit velocity from 110.0 to 110.9 mph and a launch angle between 28 and 30 degrees, postseason included. Every one of the previous 264 had cleared the fence. In Cleveland’s cold air and expansive outfield, Caminero’s ball instead found Halpin at the wall.
When Caminero reached second on the later double, he stood bundled against the weather, pounded his chest and shouted toward the Tampa Bay dugout. A night after striking out four times, he said the difference was simply baseball’s daily turn: Saturday belonged to the Rays, and he was glad to help them win.
The Rays’ top three hitters gave the lineup a different shape. Caminero drove in the go-ahead run, Jonathan Aranda collected two RBIs, and Díaz delivered the final separation with a two-run opposite-field homer in the ninth.
Martinez controls the game before Cleveland’s seventh-inning answer
Martinez gave Tampa Bay 5 1/3 innings of one-run work, continuing his success against Cleveland. He had already thrown 13 scoreless innings against the Guardians during the season, and the only run against him in Game 4 came on Chase DeLauter’s RBI single in the first inning.
The Rays opened breathing room in the seventh with three runs. Aranda’s RBI single helped the inning along, and a Cleveland error allowed another run to score. DeLauter then had trouble handling a ball in the outfield, allowing it to get through and roll away for an additional run.
Cleveland did not let the inning pass quietly. Travis Bazzana homered in the bottom half, Brayan Rocchio followed with an RBI single, and Steven Kwan battered his way through the rally. Kwan split his lip while sliding into first base in an effort to extend the inning, then returned late for the next frame with gauze in his mouth.
- Chase DeLauter drove in Cleveland’s first run with a first-inning single.
- Martinez allowed one run over 5 1/3 innings.
- Aranda produced two RBIs for Tampa Bay.
- Bazzana hit a seventh-inning home run for the Guardians.
- Rocchio added an RBI single during Cleveland’s rally.
- Díaz’s ninth-inning two-run homer made the final margin four runs.
No panic in either clubhouse
Aranda said Tampa Bay’s leading hitters had been due to click at the same time and that the group can use Saturday’s breakthrough as momentum. He also stressed that the Rays have more work ahead, with several wins still required before the job is complete.
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt saw the same kind of series he expected: two closely matched clubs, playing tight games, with the outcome likely to stay undecided deep into the final stretch. Cleveland has already lived through postseason trouble, having trailed the White Sox 2-0 in the ALDS before fighting its way forward.
Bazzana said the Guardians understand the late-season pressure and the only useful approach is to chase the next win. That is where both clubs stand now: Cleveland with Messick on the mound Sunday, Tampa Bay sending Rasmussen, and a tied ALCS heading toward its final three games.
