Tampa Bay beat Cleveland 3-1 in ALCS Game 5 on Sunday, October 18 at Progressive Field to take a 3-2 series lead.
Drew Rasmussen allowed one run over seven innings on 95 pitches, and Tampa Bay scored single runs in each of the first three innings to control the game from the start.
Rasmussen Gives Tampa Bay A Quiet Seven Innings
The best compliment a pitcher can get in October came from his own outfielder after this game, and it was about boredom. Rasmussen allowed one run over seven innings, giving up four hits and one walk with six strikeouts on 95 pitches. He moved to 2-0 with a 1.29 earned run average in three postseason starts, numbers that describe a pitcher Cleveland has now seen multiple times in this series without solving. Tampa Bay did not need Rasmussen to be spectacular in the highlight sense. It needed him to be relentless in the strike zone, quick in his innings and finished with the lead after seven. He was all three.
“It gets kind of boring out there because it’s incredible the stuff he has. But you like that because he’s your teammate.” Jonny DeLuca, Tampa Bay Rays outfielder, on Drew Rasmussen, published by the Associated Press via Tampa Bay 28 and NBC Sports
That boredom is a defensive compliment. Outfielders stand still when a pitcher is inducing weak contact and quick outs, and DeLuca line captures what a well pitched game feels like from the grass. Cleveland managed five hits as a team. Steven Kwan had two of them and also made two key defensive plays, including throwing out Taylor Walls at the plate in the fourth inning, a play that kept Cleveland within reach. Even Kwan best efforts, at the plate and in the field, were not enough to change a game Rasmussen had already shaped by the time the middle innings arrived.
Three Early Runs, Then A Closer With A Streak
Tampa Bay scored single runs in each of the first three innings, the first two off Parker Messick and the third against Tim Herrin. That pattern matters. It was not one big inning Cleveland could point to as an accident. It was steady pressure, inning after inning, building a 3-0 lead before the home crowd had settled, in a building where Cleveland needed a win to avoid travelling back to Florida facing elimination in the series. Yandy Diaz had three hits for Tampa Bay, leading an offence that did exactly enough, early enough, for its pitching to take over the rest of the afternoon.
Bryan Baker closed the ninth for what the AP report described as his 35th straight converted save chance and his fifth save of this postseason. A streak like that changes how a manager uses a bullpen in the late innings of a close playoff game. Tampa Bay could pitch the eighth inning knowing the ninth belonged to a closer who has not blown a save in a long run of chances. Cleveland, down 3-1 in the ninth and down 3-2 in the series after the final out, had no such comfort. Its season would now depend on winning the next game in Florida, against a team that has controlled the last two games of this series on the road and at home.
The series arc is worth recalling without looking ahead. Cleveland opened the ALCS with a 7-3 comeback win in Game 1, and reached this series by blanking the White Sox to complete an ALDS comeback from 0-2 down. Tampa Bay has steadied the ALCS since that opener, and Game 5 in Cleveland was the clearest example. No panic after losing Game 1, no reliance on one huge inning, just a starting pitcher dominating seven innings and an offence scoring once in each of the first three frames. That is how a 98 win team is supposed to travel in October.
One Win From The World Series, Nothing Settled Yet
Tampa Bay lead is 3-2, which is a strong position and not a finished series. Cleveland has already won a best of five series in this postseason after losing the first two games at home, so nobody in the Rays clubhouse needs a lecture about comebacks in this bracket. The Guardians also have Kwan playing at a high level on both sides of the ball, as his two hits and his throw to the plate showed on Sunday. What Tampa Bay has, and Cleveland now has to overcome, is the pitching form of Rasmussen and the closing form of Baker, plus a lineup getting three hits from Diaz in a game where three runs were enough.
For Canadian baseball fans, this series is the October they have. The Blue Jays finished 79-83 and missed the postseason, so the pennant race being watched in Toronto is this one and the National League race Milwaukee already settled. The appeal of Tampa Bay run is not hard to understand. The Rays are an AL East rival of the Jays, a familiar opponent in a familiar division, now one win from the World Series with a starting pitcher making the game look, in his own outfielder word, boring. Boring, in Game 5 of a League Championship Series on the road, is the highest praise a pitcher can earn.
By The Numbers
- Final score: Tampa Bay Rays 3, Cleveland Guardians 1, ALCS Game 5, October 18
- Series lead: Tampa Bay leads 3-2, one win from the World Series
- Drew Rasmussen: seven innings, one run, four hits, one walk, six strikeouts, 95 pitches
- Rasmussen postseason: 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA in three starts
- Yandy Diaz: three hits for Tampa Bay; Steven Kwan: two of Cleveland five hits
- Bryan Baker: ninth inning save, his fifth of this postseason and 35th straight converted chance per AP
The series returns to Florida with Tampa Bay ahead 3-2 and Cleveland needing to win to force a deciding game. Sunday in Cleveland belonged to Rasmussen from the first inning to the seventh, to Diaz three hits, and to a bullpen closer extending a long streak of converted saves. Games like this rarely produce the loudest highlights of a postseason. They produce pennant race control, and with one win left to get, control is exactly what Tampa Bay carried out of Progressive Field.
