Game 6 of the ALCS starts at 8:08 p.m. ET Monday at Tropicana Field. Tampa Bay leads 3-2 and can reach the World Series with a win. Game 7, if necessary, is Tuesday night.
How to watch
TBS, truTV and HBO Max have the national broadcast. UniMás carries it in Spanish, with Spanish-language radio on Univision’s TUDN Radio.
Gates open at 5 p.m. with buy-one, get-one drinks until 7. Rays batting practice is around 5 p.m. B.J. Upton throws out the first pitch — he hit seven homers in the 2008 postseason, four of them in the ALCS against Boston that sent Tampa Bay to its first World Series.
Freddy Peralta, and the team waiting for him
Peralta starts for the Rays, and the path he took to this mound is its own story.
He spent eight years in Milwaukee — 70-42, a 3.59 ERA, 1,153 strikeouts in 931 innings, two All-Star selections, and a fifth-place Cy Young finish in 2025 after going 17-6 with a 2.70. Then he was traded to the Mets, where he went 5-9 with a 4.99 ERA in 22 starts. New York flipped him to Tampa Bay at the deadline.
Since then: 5-2, 3.25 in ten starts, and 6-0 with a 0.79 ERA in nine appearances since Aug. 26. He threw six scoreless in Game 2 of this series. At the Trop during that stretch — 0.99 ERA, 26 strikeouts, eight walks in five starts.
“What he’s done at home, holy smokes,” Drew Rasmussen said. “I thought he got back to being an athlete with us and not quite so robotic. It really freed him up to be exactly who we thought he was going to be when we got him at the deadline.”
The Brewers swept the Dodgers on Oct. 15 and have been waiting since. Win tonight, and Peralta’s first World Series is against the organization that raised him.
Cleveland’s bullpen game
Shawn Armstrong opens for the second time this series, and he does it on the field where his season nearly ended.
On July 24 at Tropicana Field, Armstrong backpedaled behind home plate to back up a Chandler Simpson sacrifice fly, came up limping and was helped off. The initial fear was the Achilles. It turned out to be a moderate-to-high grade left calf tear, which cost him most of the second half. He came back for October.
He’s thrown four scoreless innings over three ALCS appearances, including a scoreless first as the opener in Game 4. Simpson, the man on the sacrifice fly, bats fifth tonight.
Gavin Williams is not available on short rest, Stephen Vogt said after Game 5. Slade Cecconi, Joey Cantillo and Tanner Bibee are all rested — none pitched Sunday — and Cleveland will need multiple innings from several of them to bridge to Erik Sabrowski, Hunter Gaddis, Tim Herrin and Cade Smith.
“Let’s go. We don’t have another choice,” Vogt said. “We don’t like being in this position, but it’s like we said in the last series when our backs were against the wall. This is when this team thrives.”
Yandy Díaz called it
“It’s a great opportunity. All of us are thinking of it,” Díaz said Sunday night. “But it all ends tomorrow. We’re going to win tomorrow.”
He’s earned the right. Díaz homered in the ninth of Game 4 to ice it, then had three hits in Game 5. He and Jonathan Aranda each have five hits over the last two games.
Díaz is the only player on Tampa Bay’s active roster who was on the 2020 World Series roster, and his 33 postseason games are the most in franchise history. His 25 postseason hits rank third behind Randy Arozarena and Upton — who’s throwing tonight’s first pitch.
“I’ve said it for many seasons: he goes, we go,” Kevin Cash said.
Lineups
Rays: Yandy Díaz DH, Jonathan Aranda 1B, Liam Hicks C, Junior Caminero 3B, Chandler Simpson LF, Víctor Mesa Jr. RF, Jonny DeLuca CF, Richie Palacios 2B, Taylor Walls SS.
Guardians: Steven Kwan LF, José Ramírez 3B, Chase DeLauter RF, Jo Adell DH, Nathaniel Lowe 1B, Travis Bazzana 2B, Patrick Bailey C, Petey Halpin CF, Brayan Rocchio SS. Same nine Vogt has written down four games running.
Chase DeLauter’s 11 hits are tied with Rocchio’s 2024 total for the most by a Cleveland rookie in a single postseason. Hunter Gaddis hasn’t allowed a run in 7 2/3 innings this October. Jo Adell is 2-for-18 with six strikeouts in the series, Rocchio 4-for-31 this postseason, Mesa Jr. 4-for-28 with 11 strikeouts.
José Ramírez’s October
Ramírez has reached base in 17 straight postseason games, the longest streak in franchise history. He drove in the runs that beat the White Sox in Game 5 of the ALDS with a two-run homer, and he took public blame for the two fourth-inning miscues that cost Cleveland Game 2 of this series.
If the Guardians force a Game 7, it probably runs through him.
The international roster
Caminero hit .350 with three home runs for the Dominican Republic at the World Baseball Classic in March, tied for the tournament lead, and won bronze. Aranda played for Mexico. Bazzana played for Australia.
Rocchio was in the other semifinal. Cleveland’s shortstop joined Italy as a replacement and got one at-bat, pinch-hitting in the ninth against Venezuela: four pitches from Daniel Palencia, all four-seam fastballs, none under 99 mph. He flied to left to end the game.
Díaz and Mesa Jr. were born in Cuba. Peralta is Dominican.
What’s waiting
A Rays-Brewers World Series would be the first between two franchises seeking a first championship since the Phillies and Royals in 1980.
