A pivotal fourth inning sealed the Cleveland Guardians’ fate on Tuesday night, as they lost Game 2 of the American League Championship Series 3-1 to the Tampa Bay Rays. Parker Messick induced what looked like an inning-ending groundball with the score 0-0 in that frame, but Jose Ramirez made a costly error that brought in the first run and gave the Rays the chance to put together a rally.
The Guardians had taken Game 1 on Monday at Tropicana Field, so the series is now tied ahead of three games at Progressive Field starting on Thursday.
It's a 5-game series.#GuardsBall | #StandGuard pic.twitter.com/N08wTtywBH
— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) October 14, 2026
Messick pitched five innings and allowed three runs, all of them in that fourth frame, but since they all came after Ramirez’s error and there were two outs when it occurred, all of them were unearned. He allowed six hits and walked two, striking out three in the losing effort.
The Guardians had no answer to Rays’ starter Freddy Peralta. ‘Fastball Freddy’ stymied them with the heater in the upper part of the zone all night, completing six scoreless frames and allowing four hits. He issued a couple of walks and fanned six.
The game was basically a pitching duel in the first three innings. In the bottom of the fourth, with runners in the corners and two outs, Messick forced Ben Williamson to hit a groundball to third base.
A costly two-out error from Jose Ramirez gets the Rays on the board pic.twitter.com/1KLyjAQl50
— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) October 14, 2026
It should have been a routine third out to end the inning, but Ramirez couldn’t catch it, and Victor Mesa Jr. scored. Liam Hicks then hit a line drive that fell for a two-run single, plating Chandler Simpson and Williamson to make it a 3-0 ballgame.
In the seventh, new Rays pitcher Kevin Kelly got into some trouble and gave way to Ian Seymour, who surrendered Chase DeLauter’s RBI double to drive in Patrick Bailey. The run was charged to Kelly.
The Guardians couldn’t do anything else in the late innings. They went down in order in the eighth and the ninth, sealing the win for Tampa and allowing them to tie the exciting and evenly matched AL Championship Series.
DeLauter went 1-for-2 with an RBI and two walks, and Steven Kwan racked up two hits at the top of the Guardians’ lineup. Cleveland’s relievers did a solid job, with Shawn Armstrong, Tim Herrin, and Slade Cecconi each logging scoreless appearances behind Messick. The offense just wasn’t there today to think about a comeback.
The teams will get Wednesday off before returning to Cleveland on Thursday.
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