Yandy Díaz knows how close they are. And he’s not going to let the ALCS run to a Game 7.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Díaz said in Spanish on Sunday night after the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians, via the Tampa Bay Times’ Mark Topkin. “All of us are thinking of it.
“But it all ends tomorrow. We’re going to win tomorrow.”
The Rays are just a single win away from reaching the World Series, thanks to Sunday’s convincing 3-1 win over the Guardians at Progressive Field. They jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first three innings in Game 5 on Sunday afternoon, and then held on the rest of the way to take a 3-2 lead in the series.
Díaz opened the contest up with a double, and was hit in later that inning after Parker Messick walked Jonny DeLuca. Díaz ended up with three hits in the win.
The two teams will now shift down to Tropicana Field in Florida for Game 6 on Monday night, giving the Rays a shot to clinch it at home. The series was shifted after Friday’s game in Ohio was rained out, which eliminated the travel day that was initially scheduled for Sunday. It’s unclear who will start for the Guardians, though manager Stephen Vogt said that Gavin Williams isn’t an option. Regardless, they’ll have to find a way to force a Game 7 if they want a shot at their first World Series trip in a decade.
As for Díaz, he’s the only one on the Rays’ ALCS roster who has been to the World Series with the franchise. He was with the team in 2020 when they made it to the end, though they fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2 that year. Díaz held a .293 batting average this season while earning his second career All-Star nod, and he had an American League-best 180 hits. Only Fernando Tatis, Luis Arraez and Otto Lopez had more anywhere in Major League Baseball.
While Díaz and the Rays are just a win away from a return trip, it won’t be as simple as he’s making it out to be.
“Let’s go. We don’t have another choice,” Vogt said, via WEWS’s Mason Horodyski. “We don’t like being in this position, but like we said, the last series our backs were against the wall. They’ve been against the wall for a long time. This is when this team thrives.”