Tampa Bay one win away from World Series
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CLEVELAND -- Drew Rasmussen allowed one run over seven innings for his second postseason win, Tampa Bay's offense kept on constant pressure and the Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians 3-1 Sunday night to take a 3-2 lead in the AL Championship Series.
The Rays have won the last two games and will try to capture their third AL pennant and first since 2020 tonight at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.
"Momentum is big in this sport and we have it — and we're going to keep it," outfielder Jonny DeLuca said.
Since the ALCS expanded to seven games in 1985, road teams winning Game 5 for a 3-2 lead have won the series four of five times.
Game 7 if needed would be Tuesday, and the World Series starts Friday at NL champion Milwaukee.
Rasmussen gave up four hits, walked one and struck out six.
"The way he limited anything was really, really impressive," Rays manager Kevin Cash said. "He got in rhythm with the fastball. A lot of power to everything. Then the depth on the changeup throughout the outing was a big pitch for him."
Tampa Bay scored single runs in each of the first three innings, the first two off Parker Messick and the third against Tim Herrin. The Guardians scored in the seventh but stranded runners in the eighth and ninth innings.
Cleveland has not won an ALCS when trailing 3-2 while the Rays are 58-27 at home this year, including the postseason.
The Guardians are seeking their first World Series title since 1948.
"We know we've got our work cut out for us. It's a really good team and a really good team when they play at home, especially," Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt said. "@e know this is going to be tough but if there's a group I'm betting on to get this done, it's our guys."
Rasmussen delivers
Rasmussen had given up two runs over six innings in the opener. After Chase DeLauter's two-out single in the first, the 31-year-old right-hander retired nine straight batters and allowed only one other baserunner through the sixth.
"Ras has done it all year, shutting them down like he did tonight," shortstop Taylor Walls said. "Sometimes it's a little boring when he's mowing guys down, but it was fun tonight because Cleveland was putting the ball in play. Credit to them for doing that and giving us the chance to make plays."
Rasmussen said the biggest change was he was able to command his changeup better. He used it only 12 times in Game 1, but threw it 27 times on Sunday, includng 21 for strikes.
"We were able to attack with the change-up a lot more tonight than we did, like I said, in Game 1. The ability to drive the cutter to the top I thought was also another strength," said Rasmussen, who is 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA in three postseason starts, striking out 23 and walking three.
Cam Booser and Tyler Wells worked the eighth, with Wells striking out Jose Ramirez to strand a runner.
Up next
Tampa Bay will go with right-hander Freddy Peralta (1-0, 0.79 ERA), who will make his third appearance of the series. He started Game 2 and threw six scoreless innings before pitching two-thirds of an inning on Saturday. Cleveland has not named a starter, but Vogt ruled out using right-hander Gavin Williams.