On a frigid night in Cleveland, the stars came out for the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series. And they assured this series will return to the bright, climate-controlled comfort of Tropicana Field.
Yes, there are stars on the Rays, despite their plucky, low-revenue rep. And one by one, All-Stars Nick Martinez and Junior Caminero and Jonathan Aranda and Yandy Díaz imposed their will on the Cleveland Guardians.
Díaz provided the final blow, an opposite-field two-run home run in the top of the ninth inning that capped a 7-3 victory Saturday, Oct. 17, squaring this ALCS at two wins apiece.
Game 5 is Sunday, perhaps the final contest this year at Progressive Field, where Game 4 began on a 46-degree night with abundant
hope the Guardians could seize a 3-1 ALCS lead, leaving open the chance to close it out at home.
Instead, the Rays dug deep into their bag to win a tightly-fought game they essentially had to have.
They tapped postseason star and Game 2 starter Freddy Peralta to record two crucial outs in the sixth inning of a 2-1 game, jumping on the “throw day” trend of this postseason and casting Peralta’s Game 6 availability in some doubt.
Yet at least now they know there will be a Game 6.
They can thank their previously frigid three sluggers atop the lineup and a classically Rays counterintuitive maneuver to get them there.
Manager Kevin Cash has been fielding queries about his Big Three of Díaz, Aranda and Caminero, who lugged a collective 5-for-34, no-homer ALCS line into Game 4.
So, he busted them up.
Cash dropped speedster Chandler Simpson into the No. 3 hole, just the fourth player in baseball history with zero home runs to bat third in a postseason game. And for whatever reason, it all worked.
Yandy, Jonathan and Junior went 6-for-14 and drove in five runs in Game 4, their impact felt throughout.
Díaz and Aranda doubled and singled consecutively in the third, erasing a 1-0 Guardians lead. Caminero, vexed earlier this series by fireballing reliever Daniel Espino, timed up a top-shelf 98-mph fastball and clubbed a go-ahead double down the left field line in the sixth.
And then the Rays found some cash in an old pair of jeans in the seventh, getting singles from Nos. 8-9 hitters Richie Palacios and Taylor Walls. The lineup flipped and Aranda delivered, ripping a two-run single to push the lead to 4-1, scooting to third with one out when the ball scooted under the glove of right fielder Chase DeLauter.
That brought up the No. 3 hitter, typically a dude ideally suited to deliver a sacrifice fly. Right?
Well, in Game 4 that No. 3 hitter was Simpson, who still has yet to homer in the big leagues. Nonetheless, he choked up and swung hard and lifted a fly ball 309 feet to right. Nowhere near the fence, yet plenty deep enough for Aranda to trot home with a huge insurance run.
This ALCS has already devolved into a who-has-seen-the-other-relievers-more slog, a trend that will be exacerbated over the last three games. With that in mind, Martínez delivered 16 outs to the Rays as the Guardians opted for a bullpen game buttressed by lefty Foster Griffin’s bulk-ish outing second out the chute.
Martínez’s fastball-changeup combo kept Cleveland sufficiently off balance and tipped the scales of the series back to Tampa Bay. A concept that doesn’t last very long in this ALCS, to be sure: It’s gone Guardians-Rays-Guardians-Rays so far.
And the Guardians still have the biggest card to play: Gavin Williams, who just might see a throw-day relief spot in Sunday's Game 5, and a Game 7 start in the offing if it goes that far.
Yet a Game 7, or a Game 6, seemed almost unfathomable just a few hours earlier, with the Guardians holding a 2-1 series lead and a 1-0 Game 4 edge. Instead, the Rays played arguably their most complete game yet, Palacios contributing three hits and the bullpen surviving Ian Seymour’s two-run eighth-inning hiccup that briefly brought Cleveland within 5-3.
The rains have passed, and Game 5 will commence a day later than imagined, followed by late-night flights to Tampa Bay. There will be no more delays this series, not with the Tropicana Field roof providing cover the Rays relish: They are a major league-best 58-27 at home, including playoffs.
All because their greatest players showed up just in time. If they stick around, the rest of October is guaranteed to be plenty warm.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rays stars come out with season on the line. ALCS is going back to Tampa Bay
