Rays Beat Guardians 3-1 in Game 2, Tying the ALCS at One Game Apiece
Freddy Peralta threw six scoreless innings and a fourth-inning grounder took a bad hop on Jose Ramirez, sending three unearned Tampa Bay runs home in a 3-1 win that tied the American League Championship Series at 1-1.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians 3-1 in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series on Tuesday night, tying the series at one game apiece behind six scoreless innings from Freddy Peralta and one very bad hop.
With two outs and two runners on in the fourth inning, Ben Williamson hit a ground ball to third base. The ball struck the lip between the infield turf and the dirt at Tropicana Field, took a sharp hop and rolled through Jose Ramirez’s legs into left field, giving Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead and putting two runners in scoring position.
The next pitch made it worse. Liam Hicks lined a slider from Parker Messick into right-center field, scoring both runners. All three Rays runs were unearned.
Peralta was nearly untouchable
Peralta gave Cleveland’s lineup no room to answer. He threw 99 pitches, 71 of them four-seam fastballs — his highest fastball usage in a start since June 11, 2019, according to MLB.com statistician Sarah Langs. The pitch averaged 96.9 mph, 2.6 mph above his regular-season average, and he recorded the most pitches at 97 mph or faster of any start in his career. He struck out six over six scoreless innings, and the Tampa Bay bullpen took care of the rest, with Ian Seymour and Bryan Baker retiring the final seven Guardians hitters.
Messick, who grew up less than an hour’s drive from Tropicana Field, was strong otherwise: three unearned runs and three strikeouts in five innings. Ramirez, the Guardians’ postseason star through the White Sox series, later singled and stole second but was stranded. After the game, he described the hop through a team translator: “Yeah, it’s a little bit faster here, just the surface. I was playing parallel to the base and the ball bounced right on the edge between the dirt and the turf.”
Game 3 shifts to Cleveland
The series now moves to Progressive Field for Game 3 on Thursday at 6 p.m. ET. Cleveland took Game 1, 7-3, on Monday, and the Guardians head home glad to leave the Tropicana Field turf behind: Steven Kwan, who had a ball skip past him in Game 1, said the surface “just hits differently,” calling the turf-to-dirt cutoff “not the same as grass to dirt.”
Reporting based on coverage by the Akron Beacon Journal and Sports Illustrated.
