The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians 7-3 in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series on Monday, 19 October, winning the series 4-2 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. A sellout crowd of 40,230 watched Freddy Peralta work 5 1/3 innings for Tampa Bay. Junior Caminero hit a two-run homer in the seventh inning to push the Rays ahead 5-1, and Richie Palacios added a two-run double. Cleveland pulled to 5-3 in the eighth before Yandy Díaz answered with a two-run homer of his own. The win is Tampa Bay's third trip to the World Series, and it extended the Guardians' championship drought to 78 years.
The World Series opens on Friday, 23 October, in Milwaukee, where the Brewers host the Rays. Milwaukee swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, and Jake Bauers was named MVP of that four-game sweep. Neither club has won a World Series, so one of them will be a first-time champion. It is the first World Series between title-less teams since the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Kansas City Royals in 1980. Tampa Bay lost the 2008 Series to Philadelphia and the 2020 Series to the Dodgers, while Milwaukee's only previous trip came in 1982, when it lost in seven games to St. Louis. Bauers said the city is ready.
“The city is ready. I know that the fans are ready, and I know that we'll be ready.”
AP reports that former players of Brewers manager Pat Murphy at Notre Dame and Arizona State say his success in Milwaukee does not surprise them. Murphy celebrated the sweep by saying the Dodgers had Hall of Famers while his team had gamers, a theme close to the pep talks he gave his college teams. Murphy won exactly 1,000 college games, with Notre Dame from 1988 to 1994 and Arizona State from 1995 to 2009. Cory Mee, who played for Murphy at Notre Dame from 1989 to 1992, put it simply:
“I've heard this before.”
Axios notes that this is the first World Series in 35 years featuring two teams in the bottom half of MLB payrolls. According to the AP, the Rays ranked 26th of 30 teams in opening day payroll at $89 million, while the Brewers were 19th at $124 million. The Cleveland Guardians ranked last in spending. Owners proposed a salary cap and salary floor in May, and the league currently has neither. Axios' Dan Primack reported that the players union is expected to reject the proposal outright. The current collective bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1.
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Sunday Night Baseball averaged 2.7 million viewers on NBC and Peacock in the 2026 season, the program's highest average audience since 2007. The National League Championship Series averaged 7.3 million viewers across Fox and FS1, the largest audience for any League Championship Series since 2015. The season also brought a challenge system for umpires' ball-and-strike calls, which Axios says helped drive rising viewership that a work stoppage could now threaten.
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Tampa Bay won Game 6 of the American League Championship Series on Monday, 19 October, and will meet the Milwaukee Brewers in the World Series, which opens Friday, 23 October, in Milwaukee.
AI text based on reports by Axios, AP NEWS, The New York Times and other publishers. Published .