How 'one-of-a-kind' rookie saved Guardians in ALCS Game 3 vs. Rays
Gabe Lacques, USA TODAYThu, October 15, 2026 at 7:46 PM UTC
Petey Halpin turned ALCS Game 3 into the Cleveland Guardians' favor with a two-run home run against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Rather appropriate that the Cleveland Guardians’ crucial Game 3 of the American League Championship Series was moved to the early afternoon Thursday, Oct. 15.
The Guardians often do their best work when many aren’t looking.
When most of the baseball industry ignored high school players during a truncated 2020 draft that was conducted in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guardians opted to burn one of their five picks on a slight high schooler named Petey Halpin.
In Game 3, Halpin turned the game around with a towering two-run home run.
When hundreds of potential draftees were set free on the open market that year, the Guardians honed in on a burly but erratic right-hander from the University of Hawaii, convincing him their pitching program would unlock the potential in his 6-5 frame, and signed him as an undrafted free agent.
In Game 3, Cade Smith stranded an inherited runner at third and retired the final four Tampa Bay Rays.
And a year later, in a first round filled with busts and uncertainty, the Guardians quietly spent the 23rd overall pick on an East Carolina right-hander who’d come to be known as Big Rig.
In Game 3, Gavin Williams overpowered the Rays for five innings, his fourth crucial outing in 10 days.
Cleveland, conventional wisdom says, must win on the margins, and in Game 3, those margins were razor-thin. Yet the Guardians’ disciplined organizational ethos held up against the heat of a game that would go a long way toward penning the playoff script.
They claimed this pivotal game by a 3-2 score, seizing a 2-1 ALCS lead and keeping alive the notion they just might clinch their first pennant since 2016 at home.
Game 4 is scheduled for Friday evening, but rain and wind might threaten it, just as it forced this game to be moved from prime time to a matinee.
No matter. The Land, the crowd diminished to 30,000 due to the gametime change, showed out in full roar. And so did the Guardians.
Williams, who saved Game 4 of the AL Division Series and won Game 5 as the Guardians completed a comeback from a 2-0 deficit against the Chicago White Sox, powered through five innings, striking out nine while leaning heavily on a sweeper that had the Rays flailing most of the day.
Yet he threw one too many – four in a row, in fact – to Rays outfielder Chandler Simpson in the top of the fourth, and the speedy lefty swinger clubbed a two-run triple into the right field corner. It was 2-1 Rays, and the equally resourcesful – and very talented – AL East champions had the upper hand.
Only for a moment. An inning later, Patrick Bailey – rescued from San Francisco by trade earlier this year – led off with an infield chop for a single and Halpin stepped up. Draft analysts described him as a moderate knockoff of now Cubs star Pete Crow-Armstrong, a comp that looks wonderful now.
Halpin’s story is just being written. But the first chapter was penned with one swing, a towering shot that flipped the game.
And his bat. Halpin sent it soaring into the air, a display manager Stephen Vogt said he didn't see, only noticing that the ball cleared the fence by not much.
Yet 385 feet was more than enough.
"Petey's one of a kind. He's awesome," says Williams of their emerging star. "Petey’s the man. He’s going to have a good career, and a long career."
Halpin's just 24 and has just 184 major league at-bats behind him, but Vogt nonetheless says his irrepressible energy has made him something of a leader already, in a clubhouse where veterans Steven Kwan, Austin Hedges, José Ramírez and David Fry set the tone, but all are welcome.
"He’s ready for whatever we ask him to do," says Vogt, who started Halpin in the decisive Game 5 of the ALDS, and the lefty swinger responded with a pair of doubles. "He just wants to play. He just wants to contribute. It’s really fun when you see a guy like that step up for their teammates.
"Especially a Petey – who has become something of a leader on this team, which sounds kind of funny for how little time, but they respond to him. There's no pecking order. There’s no hierarchy. This is about 26 guys coming together and playing hard every day."
Says Halpin: "From day one, I’ve felt so comfortable. They let you be who you are. We feed off each other’s energy. It’s just such a good group of guys to show up to work each day and play baseball."
From there, it was all on Cleveland’s bullpen. Smith entered in the eighth and won an epic 10-pitch battle against Yandy Díaz, striking him out. The ninth was uneventful, save for the roars of Guardians fans as Smith nailed down his second save of these playoffs, striking out two to give him 13 in nine innings.
Soon, the tarp came on the field, preparing for the next step to come: Game 4 Friday. Vogt appreciated the flexibility of fans who nearly filled Progressive Field for Game 3.
"We feed off our fans. We weren’t sure what to expect," he says. "People have life. For that many people to show up at 1 o’clock on a Thursday, that was huge for us."
Next time out, they can pull within a win of the World Series, the spotlight growing a little brighter with every step.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How 'one-of-a-kind' rookie saved Guardians in ALCS Game 3 vs. Rays
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