ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians 7-3 at Tropicana Field on Monday night to win the American League Championship Series four games to two and set up a World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Neither franchise has ever won the title, so baseball will crown a first-time champion. It is the first World Series between two clubs still chasing their first championship since 1980, when the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Kansas City Royals.

Freddy Peralta, the right-hander Tampa Bay acquired at the trade deadline, was named most valuable player of the series. He gave up one run on five hits over 5 1/3 innings on Monday, adding to six scoreless innings in his Game 2 win, and finished the series with a 0.75 earned run average.

"This is unbelievable," Peralta said, according to MLB.com. "I think I have to see it when I go home tonight and start thinking about it, because I am still in shock."

Peralta had a 4.99 ERA in 22 starts for the New York Mets before the trade, ESPN reported. Since Aug. 26 he has a 0.89 ERA over 10 outings and 50 2/3 innings. He spent eight seasons with Milwaukee, the club the Rays now face, before he was traded to New York.

Cleveland opened with a bullpen game. Shawn Armstrong, who had pitched on each of the previous two days, became the first pitcher in postseason history to start a game in those circumstances, NBC Bay Area reported.

The Rays struck in the second inning when Richie Palacios looped a two-out, two-run double to right-center against left-hander Tim Herrin. Jonny DeLuca added a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded in the third for a 3-0 lead.

Nathaniel Lowe drove in Cleveland's first run with a single in the sixth, which ended Peralta's night. The score stayed 3-1 until the seventh, when Junior Caminero hit a two-run home run off the left-field foul pole against Guardians closer Cade Smith.

It was the first postseason home run for Caminero, who hit 42 in the regular season but had entered the night 4 for 20 with 11 strikeouts in the series. His trot took 38.7 seconds, the longest on a postseason home run since Statcast began tracking, ESPN reported. Just short of home plate he paused and copied the crossed-arms celebration of Randy Arozarena, the former Rays star, who was watching from a seat behind the plate.

"I want to cry right now because I've put in a lot of work for this team, to support this city," Caminero said.

Cleveland threatened in the eighth. With the bases loaded and two out, reliever Ian Seymour walked Patrick Bailey and hit Angel Martínez with a pitch to force in two runs and make it 5-3. Kevin Kelly then came in and struck out Brayan Rocchio on three changeups.

Yandy Díaz answered in the bottom half with a two-run homer to left field off Hunter Gaddis, and chants of his name from the sellout crowd of 40,230 brought him back out of the dugout. Bryan Baker retired the side in order in the ninth.

"It feels like I'm on top of the world," Díaz said through an interpreter.

Rays manager Kevin Cash praised a roster that lacks star names. "I heard the line that we don't have any Hall of Famers in that room right now — we might, but not yet," he said. "But I can assure you we have a lot of gamers, and we're excited to get up there to Milwaukee."

For Cleveland, the defeat stretches its World Series drought to 78 years. The Guardians last won the title in 1948 and have lost four World Series since.

"It just hurts. It stings," Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. Outfielder Steven Kwan said the better team had won. "They played defense better than us, they hit better than us, they pitched better than us. We didn't beat ourselves, we got beat," he said, according to MLB.com.

The pennant is the third in Tampa Bay's history, after 2008 and 2020. The Rays clinched their first on Oct. 19, 2008, exactly 18 years before Monday's win. The 2020 World Series was held at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, during the COVID-19 pandemic, with only a quarter of the seats filled.

The Brewers won 103 games in the regular season and swept the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series. Milwaukee, which entered the majors as the Seattle Pilots in 1969, will have been idle for eight days since clinching on Oct. 15.

Game 1 is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET on Friday at American Family Field in Milwaukee. Neither team has named a starter, though Yahoo Sports said the opener could match Rays ace Drew Rasmussen against Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski.