On a cold Cleveland night with their season hanging in the balance, the Rays finally got the kind of night they needed from the top of the order.
Tampa Bay beat the Guardians 7-3 in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series on Saturday, Oct. 17, and that win did more than even the series at two games apiece. It sent the ALCS back to Tampa Bay, guaranteeing at least one more game at Tropicana Field.
The Rays got key production from the names that matter most. All-Stars Nick Martinez, Junior Caminero, Jonathan Aranda and Yandy Diaz all made their presence felt, and Diaz delivered the final punch with an opposite-field two-run homer in the top of the ninth.
Game 5 is Sunday, and after the way Game 4 unfolded, the series suddenly feels wide open again.
Cleveland entered the night with a chance to take a 3-1 lead and put the Rays on the brink. Instead, Tampa Bay kept finding answers in a game it nearly had to steal.
Kevin Cash took a different route with his lineup and it paid off. After the Rays’ so-called Big Three of Diaz, Aranda and Caminero had combined to go 5-for-34 with no homers in the ALCS entering Game 4, Cash reshuffled the group. He dropped speedster Chandler Simpson into the No. 3 spot, making him just the fourth player in baseball history with zero home runs to bat third in a postseason game.
The move looked unusual on paper. It worked on the field.
Diaz, Aranda and Caminero combined to go 6-for-14 with five RBIs in Game 4. Diaz and Aranda doubled and singled back-to-back in the third to wipe out a 1-0 Cleveland lead. Caminero then hammered a go-ahead double down the left field line in the sixth off 98 mph from Daniel Espino.
The Rays kept adding on from there. In the seventh, Richie Palacios and Taylor Walls opened with singles from the Nos. 8 and 9 spots, Aranda followed with a two-run single, and he advanced to third when the ball slipped under Chase DeLauter’s glove in right field.
That set up Simpson, the No. 3 hitter, for an unconventional but effective role. He lifted a fly ball 309 feet to right, deep enough for Aranda to score and stretch the lead.
The Guardians did not go quietly. Ian Seymour’s two-run eighth inning hiccup trimmed the Rays’ edge to 5-3 for a moment, but Tampa Bay answered and closed it out.
Martinez gave the Rays a huge start, and they needed every bit of it. He worked 16 outs before Cash turned to Freddy Peralta with the game at 2-1 in the sixth. Peralta, who had started Game 2, recorded two critical outs after Martinez allowed a leadoff walk, keeping the Guardians from flipping the game again.
“He saved me,” Martínez said in his postgame press conference in Cleveland. “Those were a huge couple outs for us.”
The Rays’ starters have now accounted for 61% of the team’s outs this postseason, a notable trend in October. Martinez’s fastball-changeup mix kept Cleveland from settling in, and the bullpen did enough after that to protect the lead.
For the Guardians, the night began with hope and ended with the series back in Tampa. For the Rays, it was a reminder that their best players can still tilt the whole thing when it matters most.
“It means a lot, because we know we play well at home, in front of our home fans,” Cash said in his postgame press conference. “We’ve got a huge game, another swing game tomorrow. That should be quite the pitching matchup.
“But it is nice to guarantee a game back there for our fans to see.”
Game 5 will match Rays ace Drew Rasmussen against Guardians rookie left-hander Parker Messick. The winner moves one step closer in a series that has already bounced back and forth: Guardians, Rays, Guardians, Rays.
And with Tampa Bay’s stars finally driving the offense, the ALCS is headed back to a place where the Rays are 58-27 at home, including the playoffs.
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