Rays Take 3-2 ALCS Lead Over Guardians With Game 5 Win

CLEVELAND — Bryan Baker, the Tampa Bay reliever who recorded the final out, was about an hour removed from sealing a 3-1 win over the Cleveland Guardians in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series on Sunday when he summed up what his team had just survived.

"It was a wild few days, for sure," Baker said. "I think we handled it really well, though. We have all year," he said, according to ESPN.

The Rays now lead the series 3-2 and need one more win over the Guardians to reach the World Series for the third time in franchise history, with Game 6 set for Monday at Tropicana Field, ESPN reported.

Why did the Rays take control of the ALCS?

Sunday's win leaned on the identity Tampa Bay has carried all season: contact hitting, speed on the bases and a willingness to bunt, according to ESPN's account of the game. The Rays applied enough pressure on the bases and at the plate to chase Cleveland's rookie All-Star starter, Parker Messick, from the game after just two innings. Behind that offense, Tampa Bay also played clean defense, limiting the free bases and extra outs that have swung other games in this series, per ESPN.

What happened to postpone the series?

The path to a 3-2 lead was not a straight line. Tampa Bay lost Game 3, which was moved up five hours on Thursday because of forecast bad weather, falling behind 2-1 in the series at Progressive Field, ESPN reported. A full postponement followed on Friday, pushing the schedule back further. The Rays then had to win Game 4 on a frigid Saturday night and Game 5 on Sunday, both in front of sellout crowds in Cleveland that ESPN described as hostile, to flip the series in their favor.

Who pitched Game 5 for Tampa Bay?

Ace Drew Rasmussen started and pitched well for the Rays, giving Tampa Bay's lineup and defense room to build the lead that held up, according to ESPN. Baker finished the game, recording what he called the most important out of his career with the win on the line. Messick, Cleveland's starter, did not survive the second inning as the Rays' aggressive approach at the plate forced an early exit, ESPN reported.

Game 5 by the numbers

• Final score: Rays 3, Guardians 1
• Series: Rays lead 3-2, one win from the World Series
• Messick's start: pulled after 2 innings

What's next for the Rays?

Tampa Bay returns home for Game 6 on Monday at Tropicana Field with a chance to close out the series on its own field, ESPN reported. A win would send the Rays to the World Series for the third time in franchise history. A loss would force a decisive Game 7, still in Tampa Bay, keeping the Guardians alive for one more game. ESPN's playoff odds coverage, cited on the same page as the Game 5 recap, lists the Rays as American League favorites entering the final stretch of the series.

Who awaits in the World Series?

While Tampa Bay and Cleveland play out the ALCS, the National League side of the bracket is already settled. The Milwaukee Brewers swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS to reach their first World Series appearance in 44 years, according to ESPN's coverage published alongside the ALCS recap. That result means the winner of the Rays-Guardians series will face a Brewers team that has not reached the sport's championship round in more than four decades, a gap ESPN's reporting on the series described in terms of "44 years of heartbreak, 44 years of believing" for Milwaukee's fan base.

For now, the attention in the AL bracket stays on Tropicana Field, where the Rays will try to finish off a series that has already included a rescheduled game, a full postponement and two wins played in temperatures and crowds the team's own players called difficult. Baker's postgame assessment left no ambiguity about how his team views the stretch run: a wild few days, handled, with one win left to make it count.

Smorgi Challenge — A live iOS party game. Random alarms drop dares. Not a wake-up alarm.