tampa bay

CLEVELAND — Drew Rasmussen allowed one run over seven innings for his second postseason win, Tampa Bay’s offense kept on constant pressure and the Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians 3-1 Sunday night to take a 3-2 lead in the American League Championship Series.

The Rays will try to capture their third AL pennant and first since 2020 on Monday at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. Since the ALCS expanded to seven games in 1985, road teams winning Game 5 for a 3-2 lead have won the series four of five times.

Game 7 if needed would be Tuesday, and the World Series starts Friday at NL champion Milwaukee.

Cleveland has not won an ALCS when trailing 3-2.

Tampa Bay scored single runs in each of the first three innings, the first two off Parker Messick and the third against Tim Herrin.

Rasmussen shut down the Guardians’ offense after allowing two runs over six innings in the opener. After Chase DeLauter’s two-out single in the first, the 31-year-old right-hander retired nine straight batters and allowed only one other baserunner through the sixth.

Rasmussen gave up four hits, walked one and struck out six. He is 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA in three postseason starts, striking out 23 and walking three.

Cam Booser and Tyler Wells worked the eighth, with Wells striking out José Ramírez to strand a runner.

Bryan Baker came in for the ninth and converted his 35th straight save chance, his fifth of this postseason. Jo Adell was on second base when Travis Bazzana hit a game-ending groundout.

Steven Kwan had two of Cleveland’s five hits and made two fine defensive plays: He threw out Taylor Walls trying to score from second base on Jonathan Aranda’s fourth-inning single to left and made a leaping catch at the center-field wall on Victor Mesa Jr.’s eighth-inning drive, saving a run.

Tampa Bay’s leadoff hitter reached base in the first four innings — scoring in the first three frames — and six times overall. Rays’ leadoff batters have reached in 10 of 14 innings dating to Saturday.

Yandy Díaz had three hits while Aranda and Liam Hicks both had two hits and drove in a run.

Díaz scored on a bases-loaded walk by Messick to Jonny DeLuca in the first inning. Díaz led off with a line-drive double over center fielder Petey Halpin that rolled to the wall.

Aranda’s single drove in Ben Williamson for a 2-0 lead in the second, and Hicks looped a curveball from Herrin to center to score Chandler Simpson in the third.

Cleveland finally threatened in the seventh when Kwan and Ramírez singled to put runners at the corners and DeLauter grounded an RBI single between first and second.

Messick had the shortest outing of his big league career and didn’t make it past the third inning for the second time in four postseason starts. The 25-year-old left-hander went two innings and allowed two runs, five hits and three walks over two innings, throwing just 34 of 57 pitches for strikes.

Reedy writes for the Associated Press.

Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys suffered an unexpected loss to the previously winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their undrafted rookie quarterback Jalon Daniels in front of a home crowd on “Thursday Night Football.”

Some might describe the loss as “embarrassing” — in fact, one guy actually said that exact word in the Cowboys tunnel within earshot of Prescott as he walked to the locker room after the game.

Online video footage shows Prescott looking back at the man — who was there as a transportation service driver and not an employee of the Cowboys or AT&T Stadium — while still walking, then turning away. The man then said something else, possibly “you heard me,” which prompted the veteran quarterback to look back and say, “You say it once I look off, huh?” while still walking.

Prescott can then be seen speaking to a Cowboys security employee and gesturing in the direction of the other man. Footage shows the security employee going back down the tunnel, presumably in search of the heckler, but it is unclear what happened after that. The Cowboys declined to comment for this article.

Prescott was asked about the incident during his postgame news conference. At first, he simply acknowledged that the person wasn’t necessarily wrong in his assessment of the game.

“He’s free to speak his mind,” Prescott said.

The four-time Pro Bowl selection was then asked if he thought the comment was disrespectful.

“You know, when he said it I just happened to look at him, and at that point he looked away, didn’t look. And when I turned my head back, he said something else,” said Prescott, who completed 24 of 42 passes for 316 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions.

“So that’s the part that — just as a man or as a person, feel free to speak your mind. Just speak it. Don’t coward away from the reaction that you’re going to get. If you’re saying it’s embarrassing, say it’s embarrassing. If you’re saying it to me, then say it to me. Don’t go back on it. So that’s all that was, and hate it that it’s even being talked about, to be honest with you.”

The Cowboys led 10-7 at halftime, but Tampa Bay scored 17 points in the third quarter to take control of the game. Dallas pulled to within 24-16 late in the fourth quarter, but Prescott threw his second interception of the night deep in Buccaneers territory with 1:16 remaining to seal the game.

Owner Jerry Jones called the game’s result “extraordinarily, extraordinarily disappointing.”

“Boy, I’ve been so disappointed before with losses, but this was disappointing,” Jones told reporters after the game. “And I’m disappointed because I see potential growth here. And we need to have good experiences on an individual basis as well as a team. And this was not a good experience out here.”

Prescott said he hesitates to use the word “embarrassing” to describe the loss because “I feel like I’m discrediting the NFL if I use that and particularly the Tampa Bay Bucs and a great Todd Bowles-coached and defensive-coached team.”

But, he added, “when a winless team comes into your home stadium on a Thursday night primetime game, yeah, we’re supposed to win that. So it sucks and it’s right up there close to ‘embarrassing,’ but I don’t know if I would say that.”