CLEVELAND – The Rays are just one win away from the World Series, headed back to Tropicana Field with every ounce of momentum in the ALCS.
Sunday’s 3-1 win in Game 5 felt even more convincing than the low score suggests, giving the Rays a 3-2 lead in the series. If the Rays advance, it would guarantee a first-time champion as neither the Rays nor the Brewers have won a World Series since their organizations entered the league.
We don’t need to look far to find reasons to believe in a Guardians comeback, though, even after an underwhelming performance in Game 5 with just five hits against Drew Rasmussen and the Rays’ bullpen. In the ALDS, the Guardians were down 0-2 to the White Sox before they stormed back with three consecutive wins to advance. The Rays have been the best team in the American League since the midway point of the season, though, and just spent the past two days in Cleveland reminding us exactly why, so the Guardians need to find some of their magic again.
This was Rays baseball at its very finest. Rasmussen was in complete control of the game, holding the Guardians to one run on four hits over seven innings. What a run Rasmussen is on this postseason. He’s the first pitcher in Rays history with multiple postseason starts of seven-plus innings and one or fewer runs allowed, both of which have come during this run. The last pitcher to pull that off twice before the World Series was Logan Webb with the Giants in 2021.
The Rays’ defense was elite, too, with shortstop Taylor Walls and second baseman Ben Williamson putting on a clinic up the middle. This series was never going to feature a 10-8 ballgame, and in a battle between two teams built so similarly around pitching and defense, the Rays have been just a bit tighter, just a bit cleaner and just a bit better.
Home field won’t be the only advantage waiting for the Rays back in Florida, either, with the first pitch of Game 6 scheduled for 8 p.m. ET Monday. Starter Freddy Peralta could make the start after nine pitches of relief in Game 4 on Saturday, which essentially acted as his “throw day” in between starts. If that’s the case, the Guardians will need to find a plan in a hurry. Peralta was fantastic in his Game 2 start at The Trop, throwing six shutout innings with six strikeouts and throwing the hardest fastball of his career (99.4 mph).
With the potential of a heavy bullpen day on the other side for the Guardians, manager Stephen Vogt and his staff will need to piece it together perfectly. This is an elimination game, though, which means that absolutely every option has to be on the table. Gavin Williams, their star of the postseason with 33 strikeouts over 16 2/3 innings, would line up one day short of regular rest after last pitching in Game 3 on Thursday.
Playing in just their 29th season since entering the league in 1998, the Rays have been to the World Series twice before, but lost to the Dodgers in ‘20 and the Phillies in ‘08. The Guardians have the longest title drought in MLB -- 77 seasons going back to the 1948 World Series -- but they’ve got to pull off something special at Tropicana Field first.
In any best-of-seven series tied 2-2, the Game 5 winner goes on to take the series 46 of 69 times (67%). In series with the current 2-3-2 format that have been tied 2-2, teams winning Game 5 on the road (before going home for Games 6-7) have gone on to take the series 21 of 28 times (75%).