Armstrong's clean 1st was as good as it got for Cleveland. The Rays scored 2 in the 2nd and 1 in the 3rd, and a lineup that needed a big night got a 3-0 hole to dig out of before the 4th inning.
Peralta was not overpowering. He walked 3, struck out 3 and gave up 5 hits in 84 pitches. What he did was keep Cleveland from stringing anything together. The Guardians broke through for 1 in the 6th, the inning he left in, and the Tampa Bay bullpen got out of it without more damage. Peralta finished with 1 earned run in 5.1 innings and the win, his second of the postseason.
Then the Rays put it away with the long ball. Junior Caminero and Yandy Díaz each hit a 2-run homer, and Tampa Bay scored 2 in the 7th and 2 more in the 8th to stretch 3-1 into 7-1. Cleveland got 2 back in the 8th, too late to matter. Both teams had 7 hits and neither made an error. The difference was where the hits landed: 2 of Tampa Bay's cleared the fence with a man on, and Cleveland's mostly came 1 at a time.
For Cleveland, the scores from the last 5 games tell the story: 1, 3, 3, 1, 3. The Guardians went 85-77, beat the Rays 3-2 to steal one game in the stretch, and then scored 7 runs total over their final 3 losses. Tampa Bay won 98 games in the regular season, and over these 6 games the Rays looked like the better team the whole way through. They took the series 4-2 and will play Milwaukee next.