Rays clinch ALCS with 7-3 win, will face Brewers in World Series
Tampa Bay Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians 7-3 in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series at Tropicana Field on Monday night to clinch the ALCS and advance to the World Series, where they will meet the Milwaukee Brewers.
Freddy Peralta threw 5.1 innings and Junior Caminero and Yandy Díaz each hit a two-run homer in the Game 6 victory that secured the pennant for the Rays, who reached the World Series for the third time in the franchise’s 29 seasons. The Brewers, like Tampa Bay, are seeking their first-ever World Series title.
A sellout crowd of 40,230 at Tropicana Field waved yellow-and-blue rally towels, rang cowbells and chanted “Let’s go Rays!” throughout the night, and Caminero addressed the fans after the game: “This is for you!” Caminero yelled to the crowd after Monday’s game. “Let’s go! I can’t hear you!” The stadium required major renovations after Hurricane Milton shredded the roof two years ago and caused extensive damage throughout the venue.
The Rays returned to Tropicana Field after playing their 2025 home games across the bay in Tampa at the New York Yankees’ spring training complex, having had new ownership arrive before this season and secured a stadium deal to be ready in 2029 near the NFL’s Buccaneers. Back at the Trop the Rays won 55 regular-season home games; only Milwaukee had that many home wins this year.
The defeat extended Cleveland’s World Series championship drought to 78 years; the Guardians had led the AL with 41 comeback victories this season but did not hold a lead over the final 25 innings of the ALCS. “I couldn’t be more proud of our group,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “It just hurts. It stings. Really felt like we had a team to go and just weren’t able to get there.”
Milwaukee’s Jake Bauers, MVP of the four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL Championship Series, said: “The city is ready. I know that the fans are ready, and I know that we’ll be ready.” The Brewers head a pitching staff featuring Jacob Misiorowski, noted in the report for his 100 mph-plus heat, and both teams feature a 22-year-old who anchors the lineup: Jackson Chourio for Milwaukee and Junior Caminero for Tampa Bay. The report also notes that Tampa Bay’s Peralta and Drew Rasmussen could pitch against their former teams in the Fall Classic.
The franchises’ histories were outlined in the report: Milwaukee began as the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969, were bought by Bud Selig’s group in bankruptcy court and moved to Milwaukee for the 1970 season, and their only previous World Series trip was a seven-game loss to St Louis in the 1982 Suds Series when the Brewers were in the American League. Tampa Bay launched as the expansion Devil Rays in 1998, dropped the “Devil” ahead of the 2008 season, and their two prior World Series appearances ended with losses to Philadelphia in 2008 and to the Dodgers in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Milwaukee had MLB’s 19th-highest payroll as of 31 August and Tampa Bay were 25th, and the report states that not since 1991 had both pennant winners been among the bottom 50% in player spending; by comparison, Minnesota were 15th among 26 teams when they beat Atlanta (19th) in seven games.
The best-of-seven World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers opens Friday night in Milwaukee.