Mistakes Cost Guards: Rays Even ALCS at One a Piece

After a stunning, come from behind, full team effort that lead to a huge Win in last night’s Game 1, the Guardians were back in action tonight at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida for Game 2 of the ALCS. On the mound for the Rays would be former Brewer/Met and 2026 Trade Deadline acquisition Freddy Peralta, who really turned his season around once joining Tampa Bay. Opposing him for Cleveland would be the Guardian All Star Parker Messick, who would be looking to rebound from a shaky 1st postseason start last week in Chicago. It was well documented that Parker is a local kid, from Plant City, Florida, and would have a lot of family in the crowd tonight. But as good as his career stats are vs the Rays, the Playoffs are a different Beast…

Right from the jump it was clear that Cleveland’s game-plan was to attack Peralta early. Kwan singled on the 2nd pitch of the game, and Jose, Chase & Adell ALL swung at the first pitch (Jose and Adell popped up while Chase had a 3 pitch swinging K). 7 pitches and 5 were swung at, so clearly they want to get after him early (of course, Lowe would strike out on 8 pitch at bat to start the 2nd), which makes sense considering he doesn’t typically go deep into starts and Cash is likely to go all hands on deck, desperate for a Win to avoid going down 0-2 and hitting the road (only so many teams can be as comfortable as Cleveland is in that scenario). Bazzana would follow Lowe’s K with a single to CF and take 2nd on a Wild pitch. But all Cleveland could muster up was a Hedges HBP as Halpin and Rocchio struck out to continue our early game woes. The third wasn’t much better, as Kwan and Jose went down pretty quickly (Jose 2 quick pop ups, just 3 pitches seen) before Chase started a new K-less streak by drawing an 8 pitch walk before Jo Adell would fly out. The more you watch, the more you understand the approach to attacking Peralta early, as he was really starting to get comfortable out there through 3 relatively clean innings, just 2 singles, a walk and 4 K’s. 

For as much fun as nearly every Guardian is having at the plate the last few days, Brayan Rocchio is probably not one of them. Since Rocctember ended, he’s hitting just .111, going 2-17 with just 2 singles. You can see him chasing a lot and swinging harder than usual, suggesting that he’s pressing at the plate compared to how calm and relaxed he’s looked recently when the pressure has turned up. A few people were suggesting a Genao start tonight- I wasn’t one of them but I wouldn’t have blamed Vogter if he went that way, looking to shake things up.

Meanwhile Parker Messick was continuing where he left off in Chicago- getting the job done but looking a tad shaky doing it. In the 1st inning he gave up a 2 out double down the line to Junior Caminero before striking out Mesa to end the threat. His 2nd inning started with an infield single, that was immediately doubled up on a slow groundball from the fastest man in the sport. Yes you read that correctly- usually a GIDP isn’t possible with Chandler Simpson running, but Rocchio ripped a seed to 1st to complete the 4-6-3 DP. Messick would lose a 2 out, 6 pitch battle to Ben Williamson, but immediately turned and picked him off at 1st to retire the side. Watching that half inning, I was hoping that the defensive magic would help Parker get a little comfortable out there and carry it into the 3rd.

Well, it wasn’t comfortable but it wasn’t harmful either.

Back to back singles from the 8-9 duo to start the inning and we were in trouble with the top of the order coming up. A 3-1 count to Yandy Diaz is not what you want, but sitting here I turn to my Dog (animal, not pal, although she is my pal too) and say “why not a groundball here?” as Yandy grounds into a tailor made 4-6-3 double play! Aranda would shortly follow with a groundball out of his own to Trav and just like that, Magic Man Parker Messick does it again!

0-0 through 3.

To the 4th inning we go and yeah, THIS is the Freddy Peralta I remember. Not the guy who suited up in Orange and Blue this year in Queens. For whatever reason, that marriage did not work at all, and Peralta was dealt after just 3+ months as a Met. But he looks very comfortable now, just pumping heat through the middle of our order, striking out Lowe and getting weak pop ups from Trav and Hedgie. It SHOULD be noted that Greedy Petey Halpin did hammer a single into RF in this inning, proving that he probably deserves more time in the starting lineup.

In the bottom half of the inning, Caminero would work a walk (after Hedges missed a pretty obvious strike 3 challenge!), which would be the 3rd straight leadoff man to reach for Tampa. A bad trend that Parker and the Guardians are eventually going to regret. Especially with a huge review in the next batter- another grounder to Bazzana…. would it be an another 4-6-3 double play? Was Rocchio off the bag? Was Lowe? A lot hanging in the balance that turned out just be a regular 4-6 put out. After a big K to Johnny DeLuca, Chandler Simpson does the ONE thing he does, hits a high chopper to Short and Rocchio just can’t get it over in time, and Mesa smartly takes 3rd with all eyes on Simpson. Messick, in hot water for the first time, answered by getting a 2 out groundball to his 3rd basemen, who couldn’t play it off the lip, letting the ball thru and the first run to score. Next up was Liam Hicks who knocked in 2 more and it was 3-0 Rays in the blink of an eye.

To me, this inning summed up the Rays and Guardians pretty well this season. In that inning alone we saw a leadoff walk, hustle to beat out a GIDP, hustle to beat out an infield single, a concentration error from someone who lets them happen more often than he should (usually resulting in runs), a mental error from TWO guys who should know better, and not being able to limit the damage. Yeah. The 2026 Guardians are a team that plays with fire all too much, eventually always getting burnt. Meanwhile the Rays do all the little things right, hustle their tails off and make you make plays to beat them. Sound familiar? More on that later.

To the 5th inning and you can just feel a bad aura from Jose, who knows this should still be a tie game if he either charges that grounder or gets his whole body in front of it (or if a number of things before that happen to not breathe in so much extra life!). That bad aura can’t last long though if the Guardians want to take this series, because you can just tell that the reason this team ran off 4 straight games in 6 days was because of how loose they’ve been playing, and the energy they’ve been feeding off of has come directly from #11. Jose would single and steal, and Chase would work a long walk as well- but Jo Adell hit a 2 out line drive right to the Centerfielder and the Guardians would move to 0-3 with RISP on the night (tho it feels way worse).

Side note- and I know this is gonna make me sound like a classic old man baseball fan- this Rays team loves to show off. I know that’s kinda how sports are now, even in baseball where I once counted 11 types of celebrations on ONE homerun (Ronald Acuña I will never forgive you), but man this team REALLY wants to let you know it when they do something. It started yesterday with Caminero playing almost even with the pitcher’s mound. That wasn’t in the gameplan, it’s not like the Guardians are a good bunting team, he wants to play up that close to show you he’s not afraid. So when he caught a liner from Rocchio there, he just HAD to do the Dikembe Finger waive to let you know. And I know I’m not just imagining it, this is the guy who set the record for the longest homerun Trot in the history of the game. For reference, Colby Mayo has an inside the park homerun where he would’ve scored 3 times in the time it took for Caminero to circle the bases…

I KNOW, make baseball fun, and all that. But there’s a difference between being fun and taking every opportunity to soak up the spotlight. And no, I am NOT suggesting he faked the injury last night (even if that was the longest injury delay I have ever seen for a guy that stayed in the game who also had a delayed reaction to said collision). He was definitely shaken up on that. But, ya know… no no no not gonna suggest that, let’s just keep it clean here.

Back to the game and frankly, with the way Peralta was pitching, it was hard to imagine that the Guardians were ever gonna score tonight, making that calamity of mistakes in the 4th slightly more forgivable than if this were a night where we could score 2-3 runs and make a run at a 2-0 series lead. Peralta would go 6 innings scattering 4 hits (all singles) and 2 walks while striking out 6. His night came to and end with one tiny whimper of a firework when Bazzana took him to the deepest part of the ballpark, flying out 400 feet with nothing to show for it.

While Freddy was the Sum of All Fears for the Guards; Parker was living all night in Clear and present Danger. He would go 5 innings giving up 6 hits and 2 walks while only striking out 3. The 3 runs he gave up were all unearned, tho, he’d be the first to tell you that they’d have zero had he pitched better. Back to back nights an All Star and Cy Young Finalist hopeful gave up just a little too much and the team paid dearly for it. Shawn Armstrong would give up an infield single (how many throws to First can the Rays beat out in one game? Seriously they are going for a record!) but otherwise pitched a clean 6th as we headed to the final act.

Thru 6, 3-0 Rays.

Onto the 7th and the Guardians looked thrilled to face anyone but Freddy Peralta. On in relief was former Clevelander Kevin Kelly, who would work himself into trouble by way of walking pinch hitter Patrick Bailey and giving up a single to Steven Kwan. With 1 out and 2 on for our Hero Jose Ramirez, the Guardians were looking for a big hit. Jose wouldn’t provide it, and it was up to Chase DeLauter

DeLauter would come up big with our first hit with RISP on the night! A double down the line that unfortunately only scored 1 (I gotta see a better replay to see if Kwan should’ve went), but put the tying run at 2nd for Jo Adell. Could we see more late heroics from the middle of the order again?

Thank you, Jonathan Frakes. No. Not this time… But the Guards DID finally get on the board, showing the resiliency and never-quit attitude we’ve grown to love over the last month and change. And with a quick 1-2-3 inning from the Armstrong/Herrin combo, the Guards would return to the plate with 6 outs left, their backs against the wall, a spot that they’ve excelled in time and time again.

Sadly, this would not be one of them. Tonight was not our night at the plate, and honestly a day off for travel might do everyone some good. The Guardians would lose to the Rays 3-1, evening the series at 1 game a piece. On the positive, we came to Tampa, split the series and shifted home field advantage our way. On the negative, we had the 1 seed on the ropes and gave them 3 runs in a game we lost by 2. It’s fair to be frustrated but also need to keep in mind; a lot has gone our way recently and there is a lot of baseball left.

Finally, I wanted to point out the familiarity when watching these two teams. The Rays play a very similar brand of baseball to the one we’ve gotten used to over the last few years. While Cleveland has been better at it over the course of 3 seasons, the Rays were much better at it over the last 162 games. But hey/ that doesn’t mean Cleveland can’t be better over a 7 game series! Just gotta bounce back and limit the mental errors, and avoid giving Tampa extra chances/at bats. They WILL capitalize, as we saw tonight.

Game 3 will be Thursday evening when Gavin Williams takes the mound once again facing (I believe?) Nick Martinez. Should be a fantastic pitching matchup between one guy coming off a record setting Game 5 vs one who completely owns the Cleveland Guardians. Time to see what we’re made of, again.