CLEVELAND -- Sunday’s series finale between the Rays and Guardians followed a familiar script. But the Rays wrote a new ending this time.

After dropping a pair of one-run games decided in the final innings to begin the series, the Rays turned another tense matchup into a slightly more comfortable victory. Jose Siri and Taylor Walls teamed up to score the tiebreaking run in the eighth, then the Rays piled on three more runs in the ninth to escape Progressive Field with a 6-2 win over the Guardians on Sunday afternoon.

“They've had our number for the past year or two, I feel like,” Walls said. “You never want to get swept. You always want to try to win a series. But when they took the first two [games of the series], it would be huge for us to come back and get this next one, especially at this point in the season when every game matters.”

• Games remaining: vs. BOS (3), vs. SEA (4), at MIN (3), at BAL (4), vs. LAA (3), vs. TOR (3), at BOS (2), at TOR (3)
• Standings update: The Orioles hold a 2 1/2-game lead on the Rays for the AL East title, pending the result of Baltimore’s game against Arizona on Sunday. The Rays remain the top AL Wild Card team, the club that gets to host a three-game Wild Card series against the AL’s No. 5 seed beginning Oct. 3.

The Rays and Guardians had played eight straight one-run games at Progressive Field entering Sunday, and Cleveland had won seven of them. This one was no different, for the most part -- another tight game that went down to the wire. This time, though, Tampa Bay flipped the script to avoid being swept for only the third time all season and headed home on a high note.

“It makes for a better flight,” manager Kevin Cash said. “We've put ourselves in pretty good position, where we're at. We want to keep playing good baseball. Getting a win here was nice. It's been challenging, certainly the last couple [of games] this year and last year multiple times.”

With two outs in the eighth and the game tied, Siri fell behind in the count against reliever Trevor Stephan, fouled off one splitter then took three more to get on base. The speedy center fielder dashed to second for his 11th steal of the season.

“Everybody knows if I’m on base, I can steal second,” Siri said. “When I’m on first base, I’m thinking we can score quickly.”

That turned out to be the case. Walls took Stephan’s first-pitch fastball, allowing Siri to steal, then pulled the next one to right field. Siri hustled home and slid headfirst to beat Ramón Laureano’s throw to the plate.

“I knew that he had a really good splitter and he was probably going to go to it, but I was trying not to kind of let that affect my decision-making,” said Walls, who redeemed a rare two-error game with his fifth game-winning RBI of the season.

“That being a really good pitch for him, it's probably a tough pitch for me to hit even if he throws me one over the plate, so I just tried to do my best of kind of eliminating that thought out of my head and sticking to the fastball."

The Rays tacked on three more runs in the ninth, at least somewhat lessening the potential for the kind of late-inning drama that has recently defined their games against the Guardians.

Christian Bethancourt, Yandy Díaz, Brandon Lowe and Isaac Paredes began the inning with four consecutive singles off reliever Eli Morgan, and Lowe scored when Cleveland couldn’t get an out on a possible double-play grounder by Randy Arozarena.

Cleveland put two runners on in the ninth against reliever Andrew Kittredge, but Pete Fairbanks took over and recorded the final two outs to secure his 19th save of the season and cap the bullpen’s scoreless four-inning performance.

“That’s big. Our pitching was big. We’ve been having good at-bats late in the game,” Walls said. “It was a big win for us.”

It was also a big day for starter Taj Bradley, who rejoined the rotation after spending the last month in Triple-A. It was an unusual start for the 22-year-old rookie, as he walked a season-high five batters, but an effective one. In his first big league outing since July 29, Bradley held Cleveland to only two runs (one earned) on three hits and struck out seven.

Catcher René Pinto’s second home run of the season gave Bradley a two-run lead in the third inning. But Cleveland capitalized on Walls’ first error and scored one run in the third, then Steven Kwan scored on a Josh Naylor single after a leadoff walk in the fifth.

Bradley walked another batter after Naylor’s game-tying single, but Siri ended the inning without any further damage by making a spectacular sliding catch to start an 8-6 double play.

“That was big for me,” Bradley said, smiling. “With the spin on it, it looked like it was going down, so for him to make the extra effort to get it, double him up at second, that got me out of the inning. I was happy with that.”