Tampa Bay Rays at Cleveland Guardians: Final Score & Recap

The Cleveland Guardians walked off the Tampa Bay Rays 7-6 in eleven innings on September 2, 2023, at Progressive Field, turning what had been a tense and shifting contest into a Guardians victory that saw the DiamondIQ model's estimate of a Cleveland win climb from 42 percent before first pitch all the way to 100 percent at the final out.

The game's most consequential sequence began in the bottom of the ninth, when Steven Kwan delivered a single off Pete Fairbanks that swung win probability 46.8 percent in Cleveland's favor, the single largest positive swing of the night for either club. That hit kept the Guardians alive and set the stage for extras. Tampa Bay had taken a 6-4 lead in the top of the fifth on a Christian Bethancourt home run off Logan Allen, a blast worth a 26.5 percent swing toward the Rays, and the visitors still held a lead entering the ninth before Kwan's clutch hit changed the complexion entirely. In the top of the tenth, an Osleivis Basabe fielder's choice out off Emmanuel Clase cost Tampa Bay 23.5 percent in win probability, a missed opportunity that proved fatal. Cleveland then closed it out in the eleventh, when José Tena singled off Chris Devenski for a 36.7 percent swing and Bo Naylor drew a walk from the same pitcher worth an additional 35.4 percent, forcing in the winning run.

Kwan finished as the game's top performer by WPA at plus-57.1 percent with a RE24 of plus-0.7, while Tena posted plus-36.7 percent and a RE24 of plus-0.8. Naylor contributed plus-30.1 percent and the game's best RE24 among position players at plus-1.6. On the mound for Cleveland, Colin Poche led all pitchers with a plus-23.3 percent WPA, followed by Jake Diekman at plus-10.9 percent and Shawn Armstrong at plus-9.7 percent.