Halpin's Bat-Flip Blast Puts Guardians Up 2-1 on the Rays
A two-run fifth-inning homer off Griffin Jax and another dominant short start from Gavin Williams gave Cleveland a 3-2 win in ALCS Game 3 at Progressive Field.
Petey Halpin needed one swing to tilt the ALCS. His two-run homer in the fifth inning Thursday turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 Guardians win over the Rays at Progressive Field, and Cleveland now leads the series 2-1 with two more games at home — two wins from the World Series.
An afternoon classic nobody planned
With rain forecast for the evening, first pitch was moved up to early afternoon, and 30,101 fans still filled the park on a Thursday. Cleveland struck first in the second inning when Nate Lowe doubled home Jo Adell, per CBS Sports' box score. Tampa Bay answered in the fourth with the kind of speed-driven rally that powered its 98-win season: Chandler Simpson lashed a two-run triple into the right-field corner for a 2-1 lead.
It lasted one inning. Halpin jumped on a 96 mph sinker from Griffin Jax and sent it roughly 385 feet to right-center — his first career postseason home run — then launched his bat spinning high into the air as the ball landed in the bleachers. "If it wasn't me, it was going to be somebody else," Halpin said afterward, per MLB.com.
Williams and the 15-out formula
Gavin Williams gave Cleveland exactly the start it builds games around: five innings, two runs, nine strikeouts on just 70 pitches. He now has 33 strikeouts in 16⅔ innings this postseason, and per MLB.com his 45.9% strikeout rate is the highest in postseason history among pitchers with at least 10 innings. The bullpen — Daniel Espino, Erik Sabrowski, Hunter Gaddis and Cade Smith — allowed one hit the rest of the way. Smith struck out Yandy Díaz to strand a runner in the eighth, then worked a clean ninth for his second save of the series.
The Rays finished with three hits and 13 strikeouts. Manager Kevin Cash said his team needs to start putting together bigger at-bats, and that he expects them to bounce back.
What's next
Game 4 is Friday at Progressive Field, though rain is in the forecast again and both clubs are bracing for more schedule shuffling. Tampa Bay, the AL's best team over six months, now has to solve a Cleveland staff that has turned October into a strikeout contest.