The Rays Are Back within the World Series, and a First-Time Champion Is Guaranteed

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Eighteen years to the day that Akinori Iwamura scooped a Jed Lowrie grounder and launched himself into the air after ending Game 7 of the American League Championship Series with a force out at second, Tampa Bay secured another berth into the World Series.

On Monday night it was Game 6, and the vanquished were the Cleveland Guardians instead of the Boston Red Sox.

The opponent, beginning with Game 1 of the World Series at Milwaukee on Friday, will be the Brewers, not Philadelphia.

But this installment of the Rays would-be champions will share some similarities to the team that fell to the Phillies in five games: smothering pitching, spotless fundamentals and defense, and a young core of top-of-the-lineup hitters that provided the final push.

Connections to both previous champion bids were on display on Monday. BJ Upton, the centerfielder of the 2008 team, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. And left fielder Randy Arozarena and pitcher Tyler Glasnow, members of the 2020 team that fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers, were in attendance with a sellout crowd of 40,230 although neither has played for the Rays for at least two seasons.

After sending that crowd into euphoria with a decisive two-run homer off Cade Smith in the seventh, third baseman Junior Caminero paused before touching home plate to strike Arozarena’s home run pose in his direction in the box seats.

The torch had been officially passed.

With labor strife looming soon after this World Series ends, the Brewers matchup will be examined for its potential impact on negotiations between owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association: two small-market, low-salary teams each playing for their first title as salary caps and floors figure to become massive sticking points to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

On the field, it’s a simple and clean contest between the most successful team in the American League, as the Rays won 98 games, and in MLB altogether, as the Brewers claimed 103 regular season victories.

Tampa Bay obviously had prolonged success through the regular season in becoming AL East champions, but there is a sense of a surge.

The Rays’ Yandy Diaz continued to mash the ball throughout the series (he’s batting .308 in the playoffs and closed the scoring with a two-run homer in the eighth), and Jonathan Aranda and Caminero continued to awaken in the final three games of the series. Yet, Tampa Bay advanced by flooring the Guardians with subtle blows. They stretched the thin Cleveland bullpen – reliever Shawn Armstrong started after working on Sunday – with their relentlessness in working counts, executing bunts, and harassing the infield with base-stealing threats, particularly from outfielder Chandler Simpson. They even turned a third-inning grounder into a demoralizing foreshadowing of the inevitable.

With Tampa Bay already ahead, 3-0, but with a one-out rally providing some hope of scuffing Rays starter Freddy Peralta, shortstop Taylor Walls smothered a bounding Patrick Bailey grounder, rushed to tag out Nathaniel Lowe in the basepath and fired to first to complete an inning-ending double play.

The demoralization appeared complete in the seventh, when Caminero raked a first-pitch splitter from Cade Smith – who co-led the American League with 41 saves in the regular season – of the left-field foul pole for a 5-1 lead.

“I know Cami had been feeling for it the last couple of days, wanting to come through for his team,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Cami’s played in a lot of big games, maybe none bigger than these last couple. And he certainly got a pitch off of just a very elite reliever to carry it and hit off the foul pole. I was pumped. [The] dugout erupted.”

The blast actually became another well-timed stroke from the Rays and Caminero, who hit 42 in the regular season, one off the American League lead. Cleveland scored twice in the top of the eighth to draw within 5-3, but Kevin Kelly entered to strike out Brayan Rocchio with the bases loaded.

And even that brief moment of hope for Cleveland was met with a sudden rebuke, as Diaz ripped a two-run homer off Hunter Gaddis to extend the lead back to four runs in the bottom of the eighth.

The winter – and perhaps spring or even summer, depending on labor negotiations – will offer the Guardians and their fans a lengthy period of introspection. Manager Stephen Vogt, who will be criticized for his usage of his bullpen, said the should “let it sink in,” as part of the regrouping. Fans of the AL Central champions might have a tough time watching a World Series where three players they traded – Diaz, Caminero and National League Championship Series MVP Jake Bauers – will face each other for their club’s first title. ALCS MVP Freddy Peralta spent the first eight seasons of his career with the Brewers before being traded to the Mets in January, then was acquired by the Rays at the deadline this summer.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said of winning the award. “I think I have to see it when I go home tonight and start thinking about it, because I still am in shock because I don’t believe it.

“Even in the moment, it surprised me because I thought it was going to be somebody else because there’s a lot of talent, a lot of players that did a great job. And I think it could be anybody.”

With Tampa Bay advancing to its third World Series – and first since 2020, when it lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers – the matchup that will guarantee a first-time World Series champion. The Brewers dropped their only Series appearance in 1982 to St. Louis.

That, too, is likely to irk a Cleveland organization or fanbase that last won the World Series in 1948, decades before Brewers or Rays existed.

This will be a hot ticket. Or at least an expensive one. The “get-in” price for Game 1 of the World Series on Friday was nearly $3,000, according to TicketData, presenting a 35-percent increase over the past three days.

And it will definitely be historic, marking the first World Series matchup of teams seeking their first title since the Phillies and Royals in 1980.

The Brewers, after a sweep of the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers, will be the more rested. Jacob Misiorowski , Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang will likely not have forgotten how to play baseball in the extra days off. The Rays, with the taste of celebratory turkey legs and airborne champagne still in their mouths, shouldn’t need much to remember the emotion of a night in a stadium that lost its roof during Hurricane Milton two years and 11 days prior.

“I think you’ve got to enjoy the moment,” Cash said. “I mean, it’s easy to appreciate what we’re getting ready to go do next and the challenges that lie ahead. That’s a great team.

“But for tonight, probably more appreciate the guys that you go to work with on a daily basis and realize what has just been accomplished.”