World Series-bound Rays bask in ALCS title glory
No, they couldn't fill Petco Park with noise, with the sort of emotion that blankets both deflated and elated stadiums in those distant normal times.
But the Tampa Bay Rays tried. They really, really tried Saturday — yelling their heads off, clapping hard, turning their dugout into a soundtrack of unbending joy.
And why not? They're all going to the World Series.
“We are having the time of our lives right now,” said Rays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier. “We just want to finish this the right way.”
The Rays beat Houston 4-2 in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.
They paired two early homers with 52/3 scoreless innings from Charlie Morton.
Their bullpen held on.
A loss would have made them the second team in MLB history to blow a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series. But these Rays, built on arms and defence, managed just enough hits to edge an Astros team still trailed by a sport-shaking scandal.
Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash needled his offence as this week wore on. It needed someone aside from Randy Arozarena or Manuel Margot to step up.
Yet in the end, as the stakes kept climbing, as baseball grappled with the Astros coming back, a mix of Arozarena and catcher Mike Zunino was the fix. They couldn't act alone.
Morton, for one, was used to having a season on his shoulders. He threw five scoreless to win Game 7 of the ALCS for the Astros in 2017. He notched the last 12 outs of their title-clinching win that fall.
He then switched sides, signing with the Rays and, last year, led them past the Oakland Athletics in a do-or-die wild-card game.
Cash called him Tampa Bay's “been there, done that” guy.
And so Morton went out and did that again.
“I wouldn't say I'm comfortable,” Morton said of why or how he thrives in elimination games. “I guess after the first couple, when I actually realized that I could do it, it became something that I actually kind of look forward to.”
In the bottom of the first, Arozarena cracked a low sinker over the right-centre fence.
The two-run homer was his eighth of the playoffs, breaking the rookie record set by Evan Longoria in 2008, the last time Tampa Bay won the pennant.
An inning later, Zunino widened the gap with a solo shot to left.
“I don't have any words to describe what he's done, what he's meant to us this post-season,” Cash said of Arozarena, who was named ALCS MVP.