Update, Oct. 16, 2026: Tampa Bay won Game 2 on Tuesday, 3-1, and Cleveland won Game 3 on Thursday, Oct. 15, 3-2 at Progressive Field, to lead the series 2-1. Game 4 is Friday, Oct. 16, in Cleveland. The article below was written after Game 1.
The Cleveland Guardians beat the Tampa Bay Rays 7-3 in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series on Monday night at Tropicana Field, scoring five runs in the final two innings after trailing 2-0 early. Chase DeLauter had three hits in four at-bats, a single, a double and a home run, plus a walk, and Patrick Bailey homered to tie the game in the seventh. Cleveland leads the best-of-seven series 1-0; the first team to win four games advances to the World Series.
The game started at 8:08 p.m. Eastern, lasted 2 hours 57 minutes and drew 35,361 fans to the domed ballpark, according to the MLB box score data.
How the game unfolded
The Rays took the lead in the bottom of the first. Yandy Diaz doubled, and Jonathan Aranda bunted him to third, giving up an out to do it. Junior Caminero singled up the middle to score Diaz. Victor Mesa Jr. singled to left, moving Caminero to second, and Jonny DeLuca then singled on a line drive to center to score Caminero. Four Rays hits, Diaz’s double and singles by Caminero, Mesa and DeLuca, produced the 2-0 lead. Cleveland starter Foster Griffin then hit a batter, loading the bases, and the inning ended with three runners left on base, meaning they were still on base when the third out was made.
Then the offense stalled on both sides. Griffin lasted four innings, and Cleveland’s relievers kept Tampa Bay without a hit in the fifth and sixth. Rays starter Drew Rasmussen walked nobody and shut Cleveland out through five innings, even though the Guardians had hits in four of those innings.
DeLauter broke the shutout in the sixth with a solo homer to left-center, making it 2-1. MLB.com said Rasmussen had thrown 90 pitches through six innings before he came back for the seventh. Bailey homered on the first pitch he saw from Rasmussen, the 91st and last pitch of Rasmussen’s night, tying the game at 2-2. MLB.com put the drive at 436 feet, the longest homer of Bailey’s career. Both runs Rasmussen allowed came on solo homers, and he finished with seven strikeouts over six innings.
The eighth and ninth innings
In the eighth, with Tyler Wells pitching, José Ramírez led off with a soft infield single and DeLauter doubled. After a groundout and a pitching change to Ian Seymour, Nathaniel Lowe singled up the middle, scoring both Ramírez and DeLauter for a 4-2 lead. Under the scoring rules, runs by runners a previous pitcher left on base are charged to that pitcher, so both runs were charged to Wells, who was the losing pitcher.
Cedric Mullins, who had come into the game as a pinch-runner for Ryan Vilade in the sixth, cut the lead to 4-3 in the bottom of the eighth with a solo homer off Erik Sabrowski. It was the only at-bat of his night.
In the ninth, all three Cleveland runs scored with two outs. Angel Martínez had singled and moved to second on a balk by Rays reliever Cole Sulser, a pitching violation that lets baserunners advance. Brayan Rocchio struck out and Steven Kwan lined out. Then Ramírez singled to left, and Martínez scored to make it 5-3; Cleveland challenged a play at first base on that hit and the call was overturned, as described in the section on the challenges below. Sulser threw a wild pitch that moved Ramírez to second, and DeLauter walked. Kevin Kelly relieved Sulser, and Jo Adell doubled to left to score Ramírez and DeLauter for the final 7-3. Those two runs were charged to Sulser, who had left them on base. Lowe then flew out to end the inning.
In the bottom of the ninth, Cade Smith got all three outs on six pitches, all of them strikes.
The numbers behind the comeback
Cleveland had 14 hits in all, from seven of its nine starters plus pinch-hitter Martínez. Ramírez had three hits, DeLauter three, Lowe two and Bailey two, with Kwan, Adell, Martínez and Travis Bazzana adding one each. Rocchio at No. 9 went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, and Petey Halpin at No. 8 went 0-for-2 before Martínez pinch-hit for him in the seventh.
The Guardians had six hits and no runs through five innings, then eight hits and seven runs over the last four.
The Rays went the other way. They had four hits in the first inning and only three over the remaining eight, and they left seven runners on base.
Most of the scoring came against the Rays’ bullpen. Cleveland’s five relievers, Daniel Espino, Joey Cantillo, Hunter Gaddis, Sabrowski and Smith, covered five innings and allowed two hits and one run, with five strikeouts. Tampa Bay’s relievers threw three innings and allowed six hits and five runs. Wells was charged with two of them and Sulser with three, and Sulser needed 27 pitches to get two outs. Gaddis was the winning pitcher.
What the managers said
Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt said, as reported by CBS Sports and the Associated Press, that his team got punched early. The Associated Press also reported that he praised his pitching staff for keeping the game close and said the offense came alive. Rays manager Kevin Cash said, according to the Associated Press, that it had been a while since his club lost, and theScore reported that he expects a response in Game 2.
The challenges
A manager’s challenge is a request for a video review of an umpire’s call. In the ninth, on Ramírez’s single, Cleveland challenged a tag play, which is a play in which a fielder tags a runner instead of forcing him out. MLB’s play data labels the review a tag play and records the call on the field as overturned, with Martínez scoring on the single. MLB’s own video highlight of the play is titled Ramírez safe at first after a review and says he slid into first safely after the original call was overturned following a review. The original call on the field is not spelled out in the data.
Separately, the box score lists three automated ball-strike challenges, in which a team asks for a review of a ball or strike call. The Rays’ Liam Hicks had a ball overturned to a strike, the Guardians’ Bailey had a ball call confirmed, and Kwan had a strike overturned to a ball. Two of the three reviews reversed the call, and Bailey’s left it as called. The box score does not give the innings.
Injuries
MLB.com’s preview of the game said Rays pitcher Shane McClanahan is out for the rest of the postseason with left forearm tightness. In the ninth, Caminero and DeLuca collided chasing a foul ball. CBS Sports said Caminero stayed in after a trainer visit, and MLB.com said he was not seriously hurt. In one Associated Press report, Cash was quoted as saying Caminero was fine.
Game 1 and the series
Cleveland arrived having come back from an 0-2 deficit against the White Sox in the division series, winning Game 5 on Saturday. The Associated Press counted the Guardians as the 11th team to overcome an 0-2 hole in a best-of-five series. MLB.com noted that Cleveland has gone 77 seasons without a championship, the longest drought in the majors.
The Rays were the top seed, according to MLB.com, and swept the Yankees in their division series, the Associated Press reported. MLB.com said Monday’s game was their first loss of the postseason and their first loss since Sept. 27, the last day of the regular season.
MLB.com reported that teams that took a 1-0 lead in a best-of-seven postseason series went on to win the series 127 of 197 times (64%). It also said that road teams that took a 1-0 lead in a 2-3-2 format, where one team hosts the first two games and the last two and the other hosts the middle three, won 41 of 73 times (56%). Cleveland won Game 1 on the road in a 2-3-2 series, so both figures describe its position, but they cover postseason best-of-seven series in general, not the ALCS alone.
In the National League Championship Series, the Milwaukee Brewers led the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-0 after a 7-4 win in Game 2 on Monday, according to ESPN and NBC New York, as of about 1:15 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 13. Game 3 is Wednesday, Oct. 14.
What is not known
As of about 1:15 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 13, the original call on the challenged ninth-inning play, beyond MLB’s highlight saying Ramírez was ruled safe at first after the review, is not spelled out in the play data. The play-by-play logs an on-field delay in the second inning with no reason given. Whether Caminero has any lingering effect from the collision beyond what Cash, MLB.com and CBS Sports said is not known as of that time.
What comes next
Game 2 is Tuesday, Oct. 13, at 8 p.m. Eastern at Tropicana Field, on TBS and also truTV and HBO Max, with Spanish-language coverage on UniMas, according to MLB.com. As of about 1:15 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Cleveland is expected to start Parker Messick, and the Rays are expected to start Freddy Peralta, according to the Associated Press and Yahoo Sports. CBS Sports’s live blog said Cleveland’s top two starters, Messick and Gavin Williams, were not used in Game 1; the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Williams threw 5 2/3 innings in Game 5 of the division series on Saturday.
Games 3, 4 and, if needed, 5 are all in Cleveland, according to MLB.com. NBC New York and Bleacher Report list Game 3 for Thursday, Oct. 15, and Game 4 for Friday, Oct. 16, both at 6 p.m. Eastern, with Game 4 moving to 8 p.m. Eastern if the NLCS is swept. Game 5, if needed, is Saturday, Oct. 17. Games 6 and 7, if needed, return to Tropicana Field on Monday, Oct. 19, and Tuesday, Oct. 20.