Rain kept hanging over Progressive Field on Friday, and by evening there still wasn’t a firm answer on whether the Guardians and Rays would even get Game 4 of the American League Championship Series started.
The scheduled 8:08 p.m. first pitch was pushed back by steady rain that rolled through Cleveland all afternoon and into the night. Guardians and MLB officials met at 6 p.m. to check the forecast and inspect the field, but no official start time had been announced.
Cleveland entered the night up 2-1 in the best-of-seven series after Thursday’s 3-2 win, one victory shy of a 3-1 cushion and two wins from its first World Series trip since 2016. Before the game, Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said the club was waiting on MLB to sort through the weather situation.
“I’m not sure,” Vogt said.
Rays manager Kevin Cash said the league and weather experts were trying to figure out the best path forward.
“A lot of people, forecasters, are putting their heads through it trying to decide what’s best for both the Guardians and the Rays and certainly the Cleveland fans and everything,” Cash said.
Cash also made it clear that the call belonged mainly to MLB.
If Friday’s game had to be postponed, the most likely setup would be to play Saturday’s scheduled 8 p.m. game as planned and make up Friday’s game Sunday, which had been an off day. No change had been announced.
Rainouts have been rare but not unfamiliar at Progressive Field in October. Game 1 of the 1995 ALDS against Boston was delayed 39 minutes before first pitch and then stopped again in the eighth inning before Cleveland won on Tony Peña’s walk-off homer in the 13th.
In 2024, MLB shifted Game 5 of the ALDS against Detroit from 8:08 p.m. to 1:08 p.m. to dodge bad weather. And in the 2016 World Series, there was a 17-minute delay after the ninth inning of Game 7, when Cleveland and the Chicago Cubs were tied at 6 before Chicago won 8-7 in 10 innings.
The Guardians have also already had three weather-related home postponements in the 2026 regular season. A game against the Cubs on April 4 was washed out, a June 14 matchup with Detroit was postponed, and a July 17 game against Pittsburgh was delayed by poor air quality. All three were made up as part of doubleheaders.
The timing made the weather even more frustrating for Cleveland, which had won five of its last six postseason games. Thursday’s victory put the Guardians in control thanks to Petey Halpin’s go-ahead two-run homer and another sharp outing from Gavin Williams, who struck out nine Rays hitters in five innings.
Cleveland pitchers have piled up 102 strikeouts through eight postseason games, an MLB record for that span.
Tampa Bay was trying to fight back and level the series before Cleveland could move within one win of a 3-1 lead. For the moment, though, everything was on hold while MLB decided whether Friday night’s game could even be played.
In Other News...
Guardians Put Their Trust In A Risky ALCS Game 4 Plan
Rain has already pushed Game 4 of the American League Championship Series into a delay, but the Guardians are still set on taking a calculated approach once play resumes. Holding a 2-1 edge over the Rays, Cleveland plans to piece together the matchup with a bullpen game, with Shawn Armstrong lined up to get the start in a move that says plenty about how the club views this moment in the series.
Tanner Bibee voiced confidence in the pitching group before the weather intervened, a reassuring note for a team asking a lot of its arms at a high-stakes point in October. The plan leaves little margin for error, especially against a Tampa Bay lineup looking to even the series, but Cleveland has made clear it trusts its depth enough to lean into the gamble rather than back away from it. [Read more 🡒]
Guardians Fans Just Got An ALCS Curveball They Didn't Need
Rain forced a familiar October inconvenience onto the schedule Friday, pushing Game 4 of the ALCS back to Saturday and reshuffling the rest of the series with it. The delay means Game 5 has been moved to Sunday, wiping out what had been an off-day and turning the weekend into a quick turnaround for fans who had already mapped out their plans around the original calendar.
For Cleveland, the timing adds another layer to a series that already feels tense and finely balanced. The Guardians carried momentum from their Game 3 win, sparked by Petey Halpins key home run, and they are planning to go with Shawn Armstrong as an opener in the next game. Now the challenge is not just about matchups on the field, but about handling a schedule that suddenly asks everyone involved to pivot on short notice. [Read more 🡒]
Rays Fans Have Another Reason To Be Furious With MLB
Game 4 of the American League Championship Series turned into an unwanted detour Friday night when rain in Cleveland forced a postponement to Saturday, but the frustration for fans had more to do with how the news was delivered than the weather itself. The decision came after the originally scheduled first pitch, which meant plenty of people had already made the trip to the ballpark only to be told the game would not be played.
For the league, the issue now is not just the lost night but the optics of the delay in communication. Chris Rose, a media personality and Guardians fan, ripped MLBs handling of the situation, pointing to the timing of the announcement and the lack of information coming out of the league office as fans were left waiting, then turned away. [Read more 🡒]