CLEVELAND — The American League Championship Series has shrunk to a best-of-three, and Sunday’s Game 5 at Progressive Field (5:08 p.m., TBS/truTV) carries the weight that comes with it: the winner heads to Florida one win from the World Series, and in ALCS history the team that takes a 3-2 lead by winning Game 5 has advanced roughly two-thirds of the time. The Cleveland Guardians give the ball to rookie left-hander Parker Messick, and the Tampa Bay Rays counter with staff ace Drew Rasmussen, in a matchup of 2026 All-Stars.
The series has alternated winners from the start — Cleveland took Game 1 by 7-3 and Game 3 by 3-2, while Tampa Bay answered with a 3-1 win in Game 2 and a 7-3 victory in Saturday’s Game 4, a game pushed back a day by Friday’s rain. Both clubs have scored three runs in one win and seven in the other, a neat summary of how little separates them through four games.
Messick, 0-2 with a 3.09 ERA in three postseason starts, gets a chance to rewrite his series line on his home mound. He went 12-9 with a 2.56 ERA and 193 strikeouts in the regular season, and his Game 2 loss in Tampa Bay was harder than it looked: three runs allowed, none of them earned, over five innings. At home this season he has been one of Cleveland’s most reliable arms, and the Guardians need length from him after Tampa Bay forced them through seven pitchers in Game 4.
Rasmussen arrives on five days’ rest after starting Game 1, when he held Cleveland to two runs — solo homers by Chase DeLauter and Patrick Bailey — over six innings with seven strikeouts and no walks. He is 1-0 with a 1.29 ERA this postseason and went 16-5 with a 2.67 ERA in the regular season, and in two regular-season starts against Cleveland he allowed just two earned runs in 12 innings.
“We’ve got a huge game, another swing game, and it should be quite the pitching matchup,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Everything is magnified in the postseason; the big hits, big decisions and the big plays. And when you have two teams that are really talented, like we feel both of us are, one play can swing a lot.” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt struck a similar note after Game 4: “Now it’s a three-game series. I’d put our guys up against any team in the world in a three-game series.”
Cleveland’s bullpen is the swing factor. The Rays’ middle-order bats — Junior Caminero, Jonathan Aranda and Yandy Diaz combined for six hits, five RBIs and four runs in Game 4 — have made the Guardians pay for every short start, while rookie Travis Bazzana’s first career postseason homer on Saturday showed Cleveland’s young lineup can still punch back late in games.
Whatever happens Sunday, the series finishes in Florida: Game 6 is Monday night at Tropicana Field, with a deciding Game 7 on Tuesday if needed. For Cleveland, a win Sunday means needing just one of two on the road to reach its first World Series since 2016; a loss means winning twice in St. Petersburg with no margin left. First pitch is set for 5:08 p.m.