CLEVELAND (AP) — Stephen Vogt and his Cleveland Guardians are used to this situation by now: needing two wins on the road to keep alive their season.
Cleveland faced a 3-2 deficit in the best-of-seven AL Championship Series and not a lot of time to rebound after Sunday's 3-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. There is no travel day because of a rainout, and Game 6 is Monday night at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.
“Let’s go. We don’t have another choice,” Vogt said. “This is when this team thrives.”
Cleveland rallied in September for the second straight season to win the AL Central. The Guardians were 60-65 and 5 1/2 games behind the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central on Aug. 17 before winning eight of nine and then going 16-9 in September to win the division by one game.
The Guardians dropped the first two AL Division Series games at home to the White Sox before winning the next two in Chicago and closing with a 2-0 win at Progressive Field in Game 5.
“I think it’ll help a ton knowing that we’re able to do it, facing elimination,” said Steven Kwan, who had two of Cleveland's five hits and his first career postseason outfield assist. “I think we feel a little better on this one as opposed to the other ones since we’ve got some wins under our belt. Just have to trust our plans, turn the page and see what happens tomorrow.”
Kwan, who has 51 career outfield assists in the regular season, threw out Taylor Walls trying to score from second base on Jonathan Aranda’s fourth-inning single to left and made a leaping catch at the center-field wall on Victor Mesa Jr.’s eighth-inning drive, saving a run.
Teams trailing 3-2 after five games in the ALCS have come back to win only seven of 23 times. The last two teams in that position accomplished the feat, Texas in 2023 and Toronto last year.
Cleveland is 47-38 on the road in this year, including the postseason, and 43-44 at Progressive Field.
The biggest question is which pitcher will start Monday. Foster Griffin began Game 1 but was the bulk reliever for Game 4 on Saturday, working 3 2/3 innings and allowing one run and four hits.
Vogt ruled out right-hander Gavin Williams, who led the AL with 248 strikeouts in the regular season. Williams started Game 3 on Thursday and allowed two runs in five innings.
Cleveland's bullpen allowed only one run in seven innings after Parker Messick struggled. A candidate for AL Rookie of the Year, Messick had the shortest outing of his big league career and didn’t make it past the third inning for the second time in four postseason starts.
The 25-year-old left-hander allowed two runs, five hits and three walks over two innings, throwing just 34 of 57 pitches for strikes.
Messick has pitched exactly 200 innings on the year, the first rookie to reach that mark in a season since Kansas City’s Yordano Ventura at 208 1/3 innings in 2014. The prior Cleveland rookie to toss at least 200 innings was Charles Nagy with 211 1/3 innings in 1991.
“I feel great right now," Messick said. “Body feels good, arm feels good. I’m still throwing hard. I don’t really have any body fatigue. It's just whether or not I’m executing the game plan.”
See AP’s full MLB coverage here
Cleveland Guardians pitcher Parker Messick reacts after walking in a run against the Tampa Bay Rays during the first inning in Game 5 of an American League Championship Series baseball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Cleveland Guardians' José Ramírez reacts after striking out against the Tampa Bay Rays during the eighth inning in Game 5 of an American League Championship Series baseball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Members of the Cleveland Guardians watch during their lose against the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 5 of an American League Championship Series baseball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Saudi Arabia says it has executed 2 Bangladeshi nationals over “indecent acts” inside a mosque in Mecca. Bangladesh said it had not been informed of the executions beforehand.
Meanwhile, Israeli police have arrested 10 suspects in connection of a wave of settler violence, including against a U.S. journalist and European diplomats in the occupied West Bank over the weekend.
Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Monday. Read our full coverage here.
Saudi Arabia has executed two Bangladeshi nationals after they were convicted of committing indecent acts in a mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca.
Bangladesh said it was not informed before the sentences were carried out and has sought information from Saudi Arabia.
The Bangladeshis, a man and a woman, were executed on Wednesday after their death sentences were upheld by the highest court and a royal decree authorized their executions, the Saudi Interior Ministry said.
The statement said they were executed due to “the gravity and seriousness of their actions in violating the sanctity of both time and place.” The ministry did not elaborate.
Bangladeshi foreign ministry official Shama Obaed said her ministry has sent a letter to the Saudi government seeking “detailed information.”
Saudi authorities on Saturday also executed five Saudi nationals who were convicted of terrorism-related charges, the ministry said.
The ministry said the men were charged with joining a foreign terrorist group, opening fire on security forces, possession of weapons and funding terrorist attacks inside Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most prolific users of the death penalty, with 356 executions in 2025, behind only China and Iran, according to Amnesty International.
So far this year, the kingdom executed over 170 people, according to the interior ministry.
Ten suspects were arrested on Monday following a string of violent attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, police said, after the attacks led to heavy international criticism against Israel.
Israeli police did not identified the suspects or their roles in the attacks, which also targeted Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine and European diplomats. The attacks came during a spike of settler violence during the annual olive harvest.
Levine was beaten Friday by a crowd of young male settlers in the village of Abu Falah, leaving her with several broken ribs and vertebrae. A day later, masked settlers attacked a group of European diplomats and others visiting the Christian village of Taybeh.
Settler violence has surged in recent years, and rights groups say that attackers are rarely arrested or punished for attacks on Palestinians.
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels struck a military camp for government forces in southern Yemen, killing at least 20 soldiers, Yemeni military officials said, in one of the deadliest attacks in the recent surge in fighting.
The rebels fired ballistic missiles on the al-Alam military camp in the southern province of Shabwa in an attack that also wounded at least two dozen troops. The casualties were primarily new recruits, one of the officials told The Associated Press.
The military officials with the internationally recognized government of Yemen spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
The attack was part of a recent escalation in fighting, which began months ago as tensions spiked in the wider Iran-U.S. conflict. The escalation between the Houthis and forces of the Saudi-backed government shattered a 2022 ceasefire deal that largely stopped fighting in Yemen’s civil war.
— By Samy Magdy
An adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei says Iran will respond forcefully to any renewed U.S. attack.
Conservative politician Mohammad Mokhber said Iran would strike “nine countries” if Iranian bases or “petrochemical” facilities were struck again.
“If they want to hit a base, we have to hit the bases of nine countries,” he said Monday in recorded comments posted by Tasnim, a semiofficial news agency close with the Revolutionary Guard.
The report did not name the nine countries.
Mojtaba Khamenei was named Iran’s supreme leader after his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed by Israel on the first day of the war. The younger Khamenei has not been seen or heard publicly since his appointment.
——
This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.
Palestinian Amal Abu Awad, 62, collects olives during the harvest in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
