AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: GUARDIANS VS RAYS

October 13, 2026

Stephen Vogt

Tropicana Field

Cleveland Guardians

Postgame 2 Press Conference

Rays - 3, Guardians - 1

Q. What did you see with the error by José there in the inning, with that play?

STEPHEN VOGT: Yeah, I haven't seen a replay from straight on yet, but what it looked like is took that first hop, Hosey kind of got stuck. It looked like he just didn't move his feet.

And I don't know if it hit the lip or not on the second hop, but just kind of looked like he sat back a little bit with his feet set instead of moving his feet. So tough break right there. And obviously they capitalized.

Q. What did Freddy Peralta do that held you guys down tonight?

STEPHEN VOGT: I thought his fastball was really good tonight. It was really good. And he was hitting that top rail. We talked about we need to get him down, but he was hitting -- putting it right above, right at the top rail. And when he's doing that with the good ride and cross-fire extension he's going to be tough. And landed enough change-ups and curveballs to keep us honest.

Freddy threw a really good game tonight. We had our chances. We had a lot of chances, but we weren't able to come up with the big hit.

Q. Your trade-line additions were able to make the difference in Game 1. Theirs did it this time. How did these two games make you think about the importance of the summer deadline?

STEPHEN VOGT: I think every team looks to supplement or add to their roster when they're in a good position. And big moments for those guys. Really cool to see. Coming through for your new team in the postseason is really fun. And you could really supplement your roster really well. We've done that, and they did as well.

Q. Going back to the fourth inning, does it just feel as evenly matched as these two teams are, that's kind of the way the series is going to go, that one mistake like that can swing a game?

STEPHEN VOGT: Yeah, no doubt. They've done that all year. When they smell blood, they take it and run. And you know obviously we would like to take it back, but you can't.

But I thought we played an excellent game. I thought we pitched excellent. I thought we played good defense at times. We had some sloppy plays in the field that we need to clean up.

But really proud of the way our guys battled. I mean we put ourselves into a position to tie this game up and take the lead multiple times. And, like I said, one big hit away. And their pitching's really good.

Q. What did you think of Messick?

STEPHEN VOGT: I thought Messick was pretty good. I thought the command was a little bit off. Again, we're not used to seeing him. For a while there he was close to 50 percent strikes to balls.

But the thing about Parker is when he gets into trouble he gets himself out of it. He gets a ground ball and he gets a big punch-out. And he did that tonight.

Again, we committed an error, and they took advantage on the next hitter.

Q. Bigger picture, taking one of these two, how does that leave you feeling going back to your place now with where the series at?

STEPHEN VOGT: Yeah, we feel great. Obviously we would have loved to have taken tonight. That would have been really big. And we had our position and our opportunities to do that.

But going home 1-1, to go have three games in front of our fans in Cleveland, we feel really good about that. And we're excited to get it going.

Q. Did you think the inning when José made the error, the double play should have been turned to start that inning?

STEPHEN VOGT: Again, I haven't seen a replay, but looked like we didn't get quite a good exchange on that ball. We didn't get quite a good feed or quick turn. Anytime your rhythm is broken up on a double play ball like that, it's going to be tough to really turn it. So again, I thought we had a couple plays on defense that we normally convert, and it just didn't happen tonight.