Guardians Retake ALCS Lead With Late Rally Past Rays in Game 3

The Cleveland Guardians retook control of the American League Championship Series on Thursday afternoon, beating the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2 at Progressive Field behind a go-ahead two-run home run from rookie outfielder Petey Halpin and nine strikeouts from starter Gavin Williams. The win, Cleveland's second in three games, puts the Guardians two victories from a trip to the World Series, according to the official recap posted by MLB.com.

First pitch was moved from its original 6 p.m. ET slot to 1:12 p.m. because of rain forecast for the Cleveland area, a schedule change announced by the league and the Guardians a day in advance. The shift did little to disrupt either club's plan of attack, and the game turned on a single mid-afternoon swing.

How the game was decided

Williams was dominant for most of his outing, striking out the side in order in the first inning and working around traffic for three scoreless innings before Tampa Bay broke through. Cleveland had taken a 1-0 lead in the second when Jo Adell drew a walk and scored on a double from Nathaniel Lowe. The Rays answered in the fourth, when Yandy Diaz doubled, Victor Mesa Jr. walked, and Chandler Simpson lined a two-run triple into the right-field corner to put Tampa Bay ahead 2-1.

Cleveland reclaimed the lead for good in the fifth. Halpin turned on a 96 mph sinker from Rays reliever Griffin Jax and drove it into the right-field bleachers for a two-run homer, making it 3-2. Williams finished his afternoon having allowed two runs on two hits over five innings with nine strikeouts on 70 pitches, continuing a postseason run in which he has struck out 33 batters in 16 2/3 innings. The bullpen closed it out: Daniel Espino, Hunter Gaddis and the rest of Cleveland's relief corps allowed only one additional hit, and closer Cade Smith stranded the tying run at third base by striking out Diaz to end the eighth before working a clean ninth for the save, as detailed in CBS Sports' live coverage of the game.

Context: two teams that got here the hard way

Neither club arrived at this series on a straight line. Tampa Bay finished the regular season with 98 wins, the best record in the American League, and then swept the New York Yankees in the Division Series. Cleveland, by contrast, needed a comeback of its own just to reach the ALCS, rallying from an 0-2 deficit against the Chicago White Sox in the Division Series before winning three straight. Thursday's victory extended that momentum: the Guardians have now won five of their last six postseason games.

The series opened with Cleveland stealing Game 1 on the road, then Tampa Bay evening it in Game 2, setting up Thursday's contest as the first true leverage point of the ALCS. Historically, that matters. MLB's own research, cited in the league's Game 3 recap, notes that in a best-of-seven series tied 1-1, the winner of Game 3 has gone on to take the series roughly 70 percent of the time, and a home team that wins Game 3 to move ahead 2-1 has closed out the series about 61 percent of the time.

Who stands to gain or lose

For Cleveland, the win was as much about personnel as it was about the scoreline. Halpin, a 23-year-old who was not an everyday starter for most of the regular season, has stepped into the lineup amid a slump from second baseman-turned-outfielder Angel Martinez and delivered in a high-leverage spot for the second time this year, according to Sports Illustrated's breakdown of the win. Williams, for his part, has built a case over three starts this postseason as one of the most dominant strikeout arms in recent playoff history, with a strikeout rate his team and outside statisticians describe as the highest in MLB postseason annals among pitchers with at least 10 innings of work.

For the Rays, the loss is a reminder of how thin the margin has been across the series: Tampa Bay has managed only two runs on two hits across the final six innings of a game it otherwise competed in pitch for pitch. The Rays' middle of the lineup, including Junior Caminero, has yet to produce an extra-base hit with authority against Cleveland's pitching staff, and the team's title hopes now depend on avoiding a third straight loss that would put it two defeats from elimination.

What was said afterward

Guardians manager Stephen Vogt pointed to Halpin's growing track record of coming up big in big moments, a notable development for a player who entered the postseason as a complementary piece rather than a centerpiece.

"It's the second time he's kind of picked us up in a big spot this year," Vogt said of Halpin's home run, according to an account of his postgame remarks reported by NBC Philadelphia.

Rays manager Kevin Cash was blunt about his team's offensive output, saying of the two-hit, two-run effort against Williams and Cleveland's bullpen that "you got to be perfect to win games like that." Jax, who surrendered the decisive home run, called his pitch simply "the wrong location." Williams acknowledged after the game that he had noticed a dip in his own velocity as the outing wore on but said it did not change his approach on the mound.

What happens next

The series shifts back to Progressive Field for Game 4 on Friday, with first pitch scheduled for 6 p.m. ET on TBS, truTV and HBO Max, though that start time could move to 8 p.m. ET depending on the conclusion of the National League Championship Series. More rain is forecast for the Cleveland area over the weekend, and both clubs are preparing contingency plans in case of another schedule adjustment. A Cleveland win in Game 4 would put the Guardians within one victory of their first World Series appearance since 2016, while a Tampa Bay win would even the series again heading into a pivotal Game 5.