A rare ALDS Game 1 win for the Rays as they always seem to find themselves in a hole at this round (remember last year's 9-0 shellacking by the Yankees?). Although the box above names Keibert Ruiz as "man of the match", it really belongs to Judson Fabian. He homered in the bottom of the 1st to answer Skyler Messinger's homer in the top of the inning to immediately tie the game, and then he hit a big 2-run triple in the 4-run 2nd that broke it open for the Rays. Shane McClanahan was cruising through 4 2/3 but ran into some trouble in the 5th and 6th, so while the 10 strikeouts were impressive it wasn't quite the dominant performance he consistently put up in last year's playoffs. The bullpen was great, though, even the struggling JDLC had a scoreless inning although it took 22 pitches. Alec Sachais will get the nod tomorrow, not Leiter.
Elsewhere, after sweeping Detroit in last year's ALDS Texas made it 5 straight over the Tigers, surviving a brilliant outing from Kumar Rocker listed above. They scored in the 9th then broke it open against Tiger closer Adam Lukas, whom the AI left in throw 73 pitches. Oof. The Dodgers even up their series with a big game from Pete Alonso, picking up where he left off in the wild card game, and the D-backs go up 2-0 and put St. Louis on the brink of elimination.