The Cleveland Guardians took the first punch in the American League Championship Series, beating the Tampa Bay Rays 7-3 on Monday and moving one win into the best-of-seven before Parker Messick gets the ball for Game 2 on Tuesday. Cleveland scored all seven of its runs in the final four innings, a late surge that flipped the opener and put Tampa Bay on the back foot after its first loss of the playoffs.
That is why Messick is the name drawing searches now. The 25-year-old rookie left-hander from Plant City, Fla., is scheduled to start in front of a crowd that will include a pretty large group of people making the approximate 45-minute trek to Tropicana Field to see him pitch. He said he thinks he has handled the pressure well in his first two postseason outings, and his numbers back that up: two runs allowed in 13 2/3 innings against the Rays this month, one run over 7 2/3 innings on July 26, and a 2-1 record with a 1.03 ERA in four career appearances against Tampa Bay.
Stephen Vogt called those starts a boost for a player who gets to work close to home, and Cleveland has leaned on that comfort on the road all October. The Guardians have scored 25 runs in their three road playoff games, with Nathaniel Lowe, Jo Adell and Patrick Bailey combining for five hits and five RBIs in the opener, while Jose Ramirez and Chase DeLauter each had three hits. Patrick Bailey and rookie Chase DeLauter homered, and Lowe delivered the tiebreaking two-run single in the eighth.
Tampa Bay has its own answer ready in Freddy Peralta, who is scheduled to start Game 2 after going 5-0 with a 0.79 ERA over his last six regular-season starts before a no-decision against the Yankees on October 5. He limited the Yankees to one run on three hits in 4 2/3 innings in that outing, but he is 1-2 with a 4.00 ERA in four career appearances against Cleveland. The Rays need that edge because the opener offered little margin: they lost after a ninth-inning collision between Jonny DeLuca and Junior Caminero in foul territory, though Kevin Cash said Caminero merely got the wind knocked out of him and stayed in the game.
That may be the sharpest outline for Tuesday. Cleveland already has the series lead, Messick has home-state support and a track record against Tampa Bay, and the Rays are trying to stop a lineup that has not gone quiet on the road. If the opener showed anything, it is that the Guardians do not need early runs to control a game; they only need enough innings to let the pressure build.
