THE MORNING HORSEHIDE HERALD

The Game of the Day

EIGHTEEN YEARS TO THE VERY NIGHT AFTER IWAMURA LEAPT, THE DOME ROARS AGAIN — CAMINERO RINGS THE FOUL POLE AT A WALKING PACE, DÍAZ PAYS HIS GUARANTEE IN FULL, AND THE RAYS TAKE THE AMERICAN PENNANT FOUR GAMES TO TWO: RAYS 7, GUARDIANS 3

Freddy Peralta carries one-run ball into the sixth and is proclaimed the most valuable man of the round; Richie Palacios, helpless against left-handers all season, wrings a two-run double from one anyway and howls at his own dugout; Junior Caminero's first postseason home run clangs off the left-field pole and is toured in 38.66 seconds, the second-slowest lap the measuring instruments have ever recorded — behind his own; Yandy Díaz closes the account at 111.9 miles the hour one night after declaring it closed; and the first pennant ever clinched on Tropicana Field's own carpet sends Tampa Bay to a World's Series that must crown a first-time champion

Eighteen years ago to the very night — the nineteenth of October, 2008 — Akinori Iwamura gathered a last grounder and leapt off second base beneath Tropicana Field's roof, and 40,473 watched the Rays claim their first pennant. On Monday, the nineteenth of October, 2026, before a sellout of 40,230 under the same roof, Bryan Baker spun a two-strike changeup, Chase DeLauter lifted it foul by the visitors' dugout, Liam Hicks squeezed it, and Baker flung his glove toward the catwalks: Rays 7, Guardians 3, and the American pennant settled four games to two.⁷ The evening was thick with its own history — B.J. Upton of the worst-to-first 2008 nine threw the ceremonial first pitch, and Tyler Glasnow and Randy Arozarena of the 2020 champions sat in the stands as paying witnesses — and it minted some besides: the 2020 flag having been clinched on neutral ground at San Diego, this was the first pennant ever won upon the Trop's own carpet, a vacancy this paper noted only yesterday morning.⁷³

The contest itself followed the shape the ledgers promised. Cleveland, its rotation spent, stitched the night from eight pitchers beginning with Shawn Armstrong, who lasted the single inning and took the defeat; Tampa Bay handed the ball to Freddy Peralta, who gave them 5 1/3 innings of one-run ball on 84 pitches, 33 of them at 97 miles the hour or better — a career high for the 30-year-old.⁴ The first blow fell in the second, and it belonged to the unlikeliest man in the order: Richie Palacios, whom left-handers held to a .158 average this season, fought off Tim Herrin pitch after pitch and then lined a double into the right-center gap, his helmet tumbling behind him as Chandler Simpson and Victor Mesa Jr. crossed, and howled at his own dugout from second base.³ Jonny DeLuca's sacrifice fly made it three in the third, and Nathaniel Lowe's single off Peralta in the sixth — Cleveland's lone answer for seven innings — only trimmed the margin. Peralta's account for the round: three appearances, 12 innings, one earned run, an 0.75 average, and the Most Valuable laurels, in company with Matt Garza of 2008 and Arozarena of 2020 among Rays so honored.⁴

Then came the seventh, and the moment the month had been withholding. Junior Caminero, 42 home runs in the regular season and none in 36 postseason trips to the plate, caught Cade Smith's offering and sent it soaring down the left field line until it clanged off the foul pole — a two-run blow, Hicks scoring ahead of him, and the beginning of the slowest victory lap of the autumn. He stopped at the first-base coach's box and beat his chest. He skipped from first to second. He cupped a hand to his ear from second to third. And at the plate he turned to Arozarena, seated just behind home, crossed his arms in the elder showman's own defiant pose, and stepped on the dish: 38.66 seconds in all, the second-slowest uninterrupted tour the measuring instruments have recorded since 2015 — second only to a 40.65-second lap of Caminero's own, taken in September. "He called it," said the 23-year-old, reporting that Arozarena had demanded the home run from the stands before the at-bat began.⁵ Even Kevin Cash, the most composed man in the building by profession, threw both arms in the air and screamed.⁵

Cleveland loaded the eighth and pressed two runs across — both forced home, Patrick Bailey walking with the bases full and Angel Martínez struck by a pitch — and for a moment the thing tightened to 5-3. The answer required one swing. Yandy Díaz, who had stood before the writers Sunday night and guaranteed this very result — a proclamation this paper carried in yesterday's number — met Hunter Gaddis's changeup and sent it 416 feet into the left-field seats at 111.9 miles the hour, the second-hardest-struck postseason home run by any Ray in the instruments' ledger, Taylor Walls scoring ahead of him. He flexed the famous right arm, formed a heart with his hands at the plate, and was dragged back out of the dugout by Caminero for a curtain call as the chant of his name came down from the seats. The man Cleveland itself signed off the amateur market in 2013, who hit one home run in 88 games for them before the trade that remade him, had closed his old club's season personally. "I'm really glad he backed it up, that's for sure," said Cash. Asked about Milwaukee, Díaz consulted the same bank book: "It's going to be a great series, but we're winning."⁶

For the beaten there was no alibi and none sought. "We didn't beat ourselves, we got beat," said Steven Kwan. "They played defense better than us, they hit better than us, they pitched better than us. As a competitor, you can live with that."³ The Cleveland drought, the game's longest sorrow, now stretches into its 78th year — no title since 1948, though four World's Series and seven American pennant rounds have come and gone since — and the young architecture of this club, DeLauter and Travis Bazzana at the bat and Gavin Williams, Parker Messick and Cade Smith on the hill, is the consolation the coming weeks will have to serve.³ The victors fly north. The 122nd World's Series — guaranteed a first-time champion, as neither finalist has ever won one — opens Friday night at Milwaukee, and the particulars are set out at the Series Desk below.