A Walk in the Park: Rasmussen Pitches the Rays One Win From the World Series
By Jess Henderson ·
Drew Rasmussen allowed one run over seven innings at Progressive Field on Sunday, and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians 3-1 in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series to take a 3-2 lead. Tampa Bay scored once in each of the first three innings, Rasmussen held Cleveland to four hits and a walk while striking out six, and the series goes back to Tropicana Field with the Rays one win from what MLB.com noted would be the franchise's third trip to the World Series.
It was Sunday, so the coffee had cream in it, and a 5:08 p.m. first pitch in Cleveland meant a little after two in the afternoon on the West Coast, which is about as close to my favorite baseball setting as an ALCS game is going to get. It was 63 degrees and clear at first pitch, 17 degrees warmer than Game 4. Friday's rainout had reshuffled both rotations. According to MLB.com's preview, it let Parker Messick start on normal rest instead of waiting for Game 6, and it let Rasmussen pitch on five days' rest, the way he made most of his regular-season starts. Rasmussen came in having allowed two runs with 17 strikeouts in 14 postseason innings, and Messick had a 3.09 ERA with eight walks and 14 strikeouts in 11 2/3.
Cleveland's lineup had one notable change for Messick, and it was behind the plate. MLB.com reported that Austin Hedges had caught all but one of Messick's starts this season and Patrick Bailey had not caught him once, but the Guardians wanted Bailey's bat in the lineup. The Rays made Messick work from the first inning. Yandy Díaz led off with a double to center, and after Jonathan Aranda flied out, Ryan Vilade walked and Junior Caminero struck out, Chandler Simpson fell behind 0-2, worked the count back to 2-2 and beat out a chopper that Brayan Rocchio fielded at shortstop, per Sportsnet. Jonny DeLuca then walked on a 3-1 pitch to force in Díaz. Bailey challenged the ball-four call under the automated ball-strike system, and the call stood. In the second, Ben Williamson singled, Díaz singled him to second, and Aranda's ground-ball single to left made it 2-0. Messick struck out Vilade and Caminero to end the inning, and those were his last two hitters. He left after two innings and 57 pitches, charged with two runs on five hits and two walks.
Tim Herrin took over in the third, and Simpson doubled to right, stole third while DeLuca was batting, and stayed there when DeLuca grounded out to José Ramírez at third. Liam Hicks, who MLB.com said came in 3-for-20 this postseason, then singled on a fly ball to center to score Simpson for a 3-0 lead. Williamson grounded into a double play to end the inning. The Rays nearly added a fourth run in the fourth, when Taylor Walls bunted for a single, stole second while Aranda was batting against Shawn Armstrong, and tried to score on Aranda's sharp single to left. Steven Kwan threw him out at the plate. After that, Armstrong, Erik Sabrowski, Hunter Gaddis and Cade Smith kept Tampa Bay off the board the rest of the way, including the eighth, when Smith came in with runners on first and third and got Williamson to fly out to Kwan. Cleveland's bullpen allowed one run in seven innings.
Rasmussen protected the lead with very little trouble. After Chase DeLauter's two-out single in the first, he retired nine batters in a row and 14 of the next 15, according to MLB.com, and the only interruption was a walk to Jo Adell in the fourth, when Adell challenged a called strike and the overturned call became ball four. Ten Cleveland hitters grounded out against him, and MLB.com counted only six balls the Guardians hit out of the infield. Cleveland's run came in the sixth. After Rocchio lined out, Kwan singled to center and Ramírez singled to right, moving Kwan to third and extending Ramírez's club-record postseason on-base streak to 17 games, per Sportsnet. DeLauter grounded to first, and CBS Sports reported that Aranda bobbled what might have been a double-play ball and had to take the out at first as Kwan scored. Adell popped out to end the inning with the tying run at the plate.
The seventh was the inning that had gotten away from Rasmussen in Game 1, when Bailey's game-tying homer ended his night without an out, as MLB.com recalled. This time Nathaniel Lowe led off with a single, Travis Bazzana popped out to Caminero in foul territory, and Bailey grounded to Williamson, who started a double play through Walls to Aranda. MLB.com described Rasmussen stepping off the mound, looking into the Rays' dugout and shouting. He finished with 95 pitches, 69 of them strikes.
I like a game where the middle infielders have this much work, and Walls and Williamson fielded eight of Cleveland's ground balls and turned every one of them into at least one out. MLB.com called their play up the middle a clinic. Kevin Cash said defense is "so important when you're playing a team like the Guardians, because you don't strike them out. They just don't strike out," per Sportsnet. "Their decision-making with two strikes has been elite this entire series," he said. "So you know they're going to put the ball in play, the more balls put in play, the more pressure there is on the defence to do that."
Cam Booser got two outs in the eighth before Kwan singled, and with the crowd of 36,303 singing Ramírez's name, as Sportsnet described it, Tyler Wells came in and struck him out. Bryan Baker walked DeLauter to start the ninth, got Adell to ground into a force play, and finished with a Lowe pop-up and a Bazzana groundout for the save. Díaz went 3-for-5, Simpson went 2-for-3 with a double, a stolen base and a run, and Hicks went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. The Rays had 12 hits and left nine runners on base, and the Guardians had five hits and went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position. Tampa Bay leads the series because it scored three runs against Messick and Herrin in the first three innings, and Rasmussen allowed one run in his seven innings.
Up Next
Game 6 is Monday at 8:08 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field, and MLB.com reported that Freddy Peralta could start for Tampa Bay after his nine-pitch relief outing in Game 4. MLB.com noted that Gavin Williams would line up one day short of regular rest for Cleveland, but CBS Sports reported the Guardians will not bring him back on short rest, which leaves another bullpen game. In best-of-seven series tied 2-2, MLB.com noted, the Game 5 winner has taken the series 46 of 69 times. The Milwaukee Brewers are waiting, and CBS Sports reported the World Series begins Friday in Milwaukee.