‘All the emotions’: Guardians top Yanks in wild G3
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Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer
CLEVELAND — An hour after the Cleveland Guardians saved a season that was on the brink of doom, the massive scoreboard above the left-field bleachers still flashed with the words “Guardians win!”
That much was indisputable, even though, in a number of ways, so much of what happened seemed all but impossible.
“All the emotions, ups and downs, back and forth, you name it,” Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt said. “If there’s an emotion, we all felt it on both sides.”
The bottom line is this: The Guardians beat the Yankees 7-5 in 10 innings Thursday, cutting New York’s lead in the American League Championship Series to 2-1.
But in a game like that, the bottom line barely says anything. Not after a game with so many late, wild swings of momentum that it is hard to remember that, for 7⅓ innings, it looked very much like a straight-forward, low-scoring Cleveland win that followed the script the AL Central champs have followed all season.
That script ends with the same scene every time. The Guardians scratch out a lead for their deep, MLB-best bullpen. The show ends with Emmanuel Clase striking someone out for yet another save. With Cleveland leading 3-1 and two down in the eighth Thursday, New York’s Juan Soto walked in front of the game’s preeminent slugger, Aaron Judge, so Vogt did what he did all year — summon Clase.
Clase, a Cy Young candidate who recorded 47 saves with a minuscule 0.61 ERA during the season, has become so consistently dominant that his teammates almost take for granted that he is going to get the job done.
“There’s not enough adjectives to talk about how good he was this season,” Cleveland designated hitter David Fry said. “He had to have set records for just about everything you can do as a closer. You just hand him the ball, and we don’t even watch the game. I feel like we are chatting up because we know the game is over.”
But this one was not over.
Judge clubbed a 99 mph cutter, Clase’s signature pitch, located on the outer edge of the strike zone, and drilled a slicing liner that cleared the right-field wall to tie the game. Judge hit 58 homers during the season and is the AL single-season home run champ, and yet for him to hit that pitch off that pitcher was shocking.
“I think there’s one person that could hit that pitch off Emmanuel Clase out of the yard, and he did,” Vogt said. “As a baseball fan, it was really cool. As the opposing manager, it was not.”
Judge maintained he wasn’t trying to take Clase deep. Oops.
“I was just trying to get on base with a little single to right, especially with [Giancarlo] Stanton behind me,” Judge said. “When you got a guy like that’s throwing 102 miles an hour cutting, with a good feel for the slider, just try not to do too much. Try to put the ball in play and see what happens.”
The uncanny realities continued. Clase threw a slider that hung in the middle of the plate to Stanton, who launched it over the center-field wall for a go-ahead blast. That was two homers for back-to-back Yankees sluggers off a pitcher who gave up two homers during the regular season.
“That guy is an all-world closer,” said Cleveland starter Matthew Boyd, who threw five sharp innings before the game went haywire. “He has the ball every single time with the game on the line, and I’m going to take him over whoever is in the [batter’s] box every single time. Our whole club feels the same way. That guy is amazing.”
The Yankees tacked on a run in the ninth, so New York closer Luke Weaver had a two-run edge to work with as he sought to get the final three outs and put the Bombers into a commanding three games to zero advantage in the series.
Weaver has been perhaps the one reliever in the AL as hot as Clase during the stretch run. After the stunning turnaround and the faltering of Clase, one of baseball’s few apparent certainties, Cleveland might have been expected to go meekly.
Instead, in part because the pitcher who has dominated for them so many times this season met with disappointment, the Guardians remained intent to pick up their teammate.
“We were obviously shook, but it was just like, you know what, it’s time we give him a break,” Fry said. “He carried our team all year long in the ninth inning, and it’s our time to pick him up. I’m glad we did.”
So were most of a suddenly raucous crowd that watched as Cleveland turned the tables on Weaver and the Yankees, almost as stunning and unlikely as the homers given up by Clase. With two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth, Lane Thomas doubled off the left-field wall to keep the game alive.
Still, Weaver had that two-run lead and needed just one final out. Vogt sent up a rookie to face him, powerfully built 23-year-old Jhonkensy Noel, whose first season has featured prodigious homers — 13 of them — and prolonged struggles as he seeks to establish himself at the big league level.
In choosing Noel in that moment, Vogt had one thing in mind.
“I mean, he pinch hit to hit a homer,” Vogt said. “That’s why we sent him up there.”
As for Noel, he said via a club interpreter, “He didn’t say anything explicitly, but I know every time I get my name called up it’s because they believe in me and they trust me. That’s something they’ve done the whole year.”
Consider it trust well rewarded. Noel sent a poorly located changeup into the bleachers in left field, a section that would see even more drama a little later. Noel walked leisurely toward first base after making contact, fully aware of what had just happened on that swing. Game tied. Progressive Field erupted in the throes of mayhem.
“It’s nothing special,” Noel said, modestly referring to the sensation of striking the ball in that spot. “It’s the same sensation in a regular game, and you have to have the same approach.”
Weaver entered the game with a 1.29 ERA and four saves during his first six appearances, having solidified a Yankees bullpen that was in flux for much of the campaign. He doesn’t have Clase’s lengthy track record of dominance but he has been so consistent for the Yankees of late that his faltering was very similar on the surprise meter as that of Clase.
“Just really felt like I let the team down there, myself down,” Weaver said. “It’s baseball. Things like that happen. A twist of an arm, and it just feels a little devastating.”
Noel’s blow evened the score at five and pushed the contest to extra innings. Both teams had exhausted their top relievers and endured gut-wrenching homers. Cleveland reliever Pedro Avila worked a scoreless top of the 10th, a sequence that included a strikeout of Judge.
That set the moment for a budding postseason legend in Cleveland, Fry, who earned an AL All-Star slot this season as a utility player. Fry had one huge October moment under his belt already, coming off the bench and hitting a two-run go-ahead homer in Cleveland’s Game 4 ALDS win against Detroit.
With Bo Naylor on third base, Fry launched another ball into those same left-field bleachers, ending the game with a two-run shot off the Yankees’ Clay Holmes, another AL All-Star selection. That completed the Guardians’ merry-go-round, from the security of Clase’s entrance, to the despair of his blown save, to the season-saving rookie blast, to a win that puts Cleveland right back in the series.
“At that point I blacked out,” Fry said. “No clue. I remember being like halfway down the first baseline looking back at the dugout and looking and saying, ‘All right, I just have to make sure I touch all four bases and get home and celebrate.'”
With Fry’s homer, there could be no more turnarounds on a night full of them. The Yankees stalked off the field, the Guardians danced their way back to their clubhouse, the throng cheered well after the final homer and the scoreboard flashed red with “Guardians win!” well into the Cleveland night.
Clase departed quickly after the game, leaving his teammates and manager behind to celebrate on his behalf, perhaps a fitting dynamic on a night when they did for him what Clase did for them so often this season.
“I couldn’t be more proud of our guys,” Vogt said. “That’s exactly who we are. We never quit. We get punched in the teeth pretty hard there in the eighth, and our guys stepped up huge for the guy that carried us all year long. That was really fun to see.”
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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
CLEVELAND — For nearly an hour Thursday night, the New York Yankees had seemingly overcome a bout of sloppy baseball to pull within a win of the World Series in jaw-dropping, crowd-silencing, totally bonkers fashion.
Down two runs with two outs in the eighth inning, the Yankees were tasked to solve Emmanuel Clase, the best closer in baseball, to give themselves a chance to take a 3-0 series lead. In 74 regular season appearances, the fireballer allowed five earned runs. The Detroit Tigers got to him once in the AL Division series — before he shut them down again in multi-inning appearances in the next two games. Erasing the deficit appeared next-to-impossible.
Then Aaron Judge blasted a low line drive that pierced through the air, just over the right-field wall for a game-tying two-run home run. Two minutes later, Giancarlo Stanton crushed a slider over the wall in center-field to make it back-to-back homers and a one-run New York lead. The Yankees spilled out of their dugout in celebration. They had slayed the mighty Clase.
Then, well, then a game bordering on the absurd leaped across the line to give us one of the most memorable games in recent postseason history.
“That was an incredible game on both sides. All the emotions, ups and downs, back and forth, you name it,” Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “If there’s an emotion, we all felt it on both sides.”
Roller coaster. Heavyweight fight. Insert cliche here. It was a classic baseball game. Here are the game’s six biggest moments — with the win probability before each turn — to illustrate the madness.
Top of the eighth inning, two outs
Cleveland leads, 3-1
Win probability: 93.2% Cleveland
The Judge at-bat against Clase starts with what happened moments before it started, when Guardians right-hander Hunter Gaddis seemed to pitch around Soto. Gaddis, whose 5% walk rate during the regular season was tied for 14th among relievers, issued a two-out, four-pitch walk to Soto, and none of the pitches were particularly close. Vogt then replaced Gaddis with Clase.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he didn’t believe Gaddis pitched around Soto. Judge said he had “no idea.” Regardless, the sequence set up a marquee matchup. Judge vs. Clase. Power vs. power. The best hitter in the world against the best reliever in the world.
The clash tilted toward Clase early. The right-hander jumped ahead on Judge with a cutter down the middle that Judge fouled off and a cutter down away he swung through. Judge then took a 99-mph cutter way off the plate before Clase dotted the outside corner with another 99-mph cutter.
“He just stayed with it,” Stanton said of Judge. “It was incredible. It wasn’t a bad pitch. It was low and away, on the black. And he does what he does.”
What Judge did was barrel the baseball. It traveled 109.9 mph off the bat and landed 356 away, just over the wall, and bounced into the stands as Judge sprinted to first base. Tie game.
“I thought it was low,” Judge said. “So, you know, my first thought is try to be on second base. Hopefully Juan can score or he’s at third base. But try to get on second base for Big G coming up in that situation.”
Top of the eighth inning, two outs
Tie game, 3-3
Win probability: 59.9% Cleveland
Like his fellow gargantuan teammate, Stanton fell behind 0-2. He fouled off a 91-mph slider, swung through a 100-mph cutter, and fouled off a cutter down the middle. Two pitches later, he fouled off a 93-mph slider over the plate. Those two pitches stuck with him.
“He was riding the cutters and sliders in, so it was just get one out over the plate,” Stanton said. “And I missed a couple out over the plate so I was able to get to the third one.”
The third one was the seventh pitch of the battle, a 90-mph slider that caught too much plate. Stanton pounced with an 85-mph swing — the hardest by a player on either side Thursday. It jumped off the bat at 106.1 mph and was deposited 390 feet from home plate.
“I think I threw a right fist pump, like fired up,” Boone said. “But you’re right in the game …You’re kind of staying with what’s next. But you certainly feel the energy of a couple shots like that.”
And just like that, the Yankees had a lead. It was the first time Clase had given up multiple home runs in a game in 326 career appearances, postseason included. New York was three outs from pulling within a win of its first World Series appearance in 15 years. It was a stunning turn of events. And it was just getting started.
Bottom of the ninth inning, two outs
Yankees lead, 5-3
Win probability: 98.5% New York
Luke Weaver, called on for a four-out save, had danced out of a two-on, two-out jam in the eighth inning by striking out David Fry. Then, after Anthony Rizzo committed an error to start the bottom of the ninth, he started a nifty 1-6-3 double play to squash Cleveland’s momentum.
He was one out away from his fourth postseason save of at least four outs. It looked imminent when he jumped ahead 0-2 on Lane Thomas after the double play. But suddenly, he lost the momentum. The next three pitches were uncompetitive and Thomas took them to run the count full. The sixth pitch of the at-bat was a 95-mph fastball down and in that Thomas hooked off the tall left-field wall.
“You get to 0-2 and you just try to do a little too much,” Weaver said. “Thomas has a good at-bat there, and, yeah, the moment starts to get a little big. So just trying to take a step back and tonight didn’t quite have the execution in that moment that I needed to.”
Bottom of the ninth inning, two outs
Yankees lead, 5-3
Win probability: 95.4% New York
After the game, Vogt was clear about his motivation in sending Jhonkensy Noel up to pinch-hit for Daniel Schneemann: “I mean, he pinch hit to hit a homer,” Vogt said. “That’s why we sent him up there.” And, boy, did the man they call Big Christmas deliver.
After taking another uncompetitive pitch way out of the strike zone, Noel pounced on a fat changeup over the heart of the plate and left no doubt. He smoothly flipped his bat to the side the second he made contact to tie the game. Pandemonium rained around him. He had, at least for the moment, effectively saved the Guardians’ season.
“Just really felt like I let the team down there, myself down,” Weaver said. “It’s baseball, things like that happen. A twist of an arm and it just feels a little devastating. We’re still in a good position. Feel like there’s some momentum there, but they earned it. It was a crazy game. The bats were hot and the ball was flying out of the park.
Weaver hadn’t given up a home run or multiple runs since Sept. 2 — his last appearance before becoming the Yankees’ primary closer.
“It hurts a little bit more, yeah,” Weaver said. “It hurts a little bit more knowing how hard they work to get the game to where it was. It hurts even more knowing I had 0-2, we’re one pitch away after a big double play. Yeah, it all stinks. It hurts more knowing how close we were, how big a 3-0 [lead] would be. But that’s life. I’ve been through plenty of failure to know that it’s not always how we want it to be.”
Top of the 10th inning, one out
Tie game, 5-5
Win probabiiity: 50.8% New York
The Yankees were threatening to quickly retake the lead when Stanton worked a one-out walk to bring up Jazz Chisholm Jr., who had walked and singled in his previous two plate appearances. This time, the Yankees third baseman hit a chopper in the hold at second base that appeared destined to leak through the infield.
That is until Guardians second baseman Andrés Giménez, ranging to his left, somehow snagged the baseball in shallow right field, twisted around, and made a leaping throw falling to his backside. It one-hopped to first baseman Josh Naylor, who stretched to his limit with his left foot just glancing the first base to complete the improbable out.
The play, reminiscent of the kinds Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar made in his three seasons as Cleveland’s second baseman at the turn of the century, deflated the Yankees’ rally.
“Andrés Giménez is the best infielder on the planet,” Vogt said. “He has been, and he will be. He makes plays that make us wow every single day it seems like.”
Bottom of the 10th inning, two outs
Tie game, 5-5
Win probability: 62.7% Cleveland
The night finally ended, after 3 hours and 52 minutes, with David Fry launching a mistake 1-2 sinker — up and over the plate — from Clay Holmes into the seats beyond the left-field wall.
“I just told God, like, ‘Hey, man, take this,'” Fry said. “It’s a tough matchup. Just try to have fun. You take the at-bat, got behind in the count and just got a pitch up in the zone and luckily it went out.”
The Yankees, up to that point, were 196-1 in their postseason history when leading by multiple runs in the ninth inning or later, according to ESPN Research. Their only other loss in that situation? Game 3 of the 2022 ALDS against … the Guardians.
“We’re supposed to go out there and do our job,” Holmes said. “That’s our job, to go out there and shut things down. Our hitters did a great job of putting us in position and we just didn’t make pitches. But our expectation is to go out there and put up zeroes.”
It was Fry’s second home run of the postseason, and both have been huge. The first was a go-ahead, two-run home run in Game 4 of the ALDS against the Detroit Tigers with the Guardians facing elimination. That home run saved the Guardians’ season before they came back to advance another round. Time will tell if Thursday’s heroics will do the same.
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Jesse Rogers, ESPN Staff Writer
NEW YORK — Attempting to avoid elimination against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS on Friday, the New York Mets will turn to lefty David Peterson for Game 5, manager Carlos Mendoza announced after the team’s Game 4 10-2 loss Thursday.
Peterson, 29, will be making his first start of the postseason after four relief appearances, including 2 1/3 innings in Game 1 of the series on Sunday.
The Dodgers lead the best-of-seven series, three games to one.
“Facing an elimination game, he’s fully rested,” Mendoza said after the 10-2 loss on Thursday. “He’s been one of our starters — one of our best starters. We just feel like he’s going to give us the best chance.”
Peterson made 21 regular season starts, compiling a 2.90 ERA, but hasn’t thrown more than three innings in a game since the end of last month. He’s had two relief outings during the playoffs of 40 or more pitches, including in his Game 1 appearance. He gave up three runs on four hits and a walk in that contest, a 9-0 defeat to L.A.
“It means a lot to be able to get the ball in a situation like this,” Peterson said. “To have the confidence of many and the team and the coaching staff is huge…I feel ready to go, as deep as necessary. Looking forward to it. Ready to give every pitch I have.”
As expected, he’ll be opposed by Dodgers Game 1 starter Jack Flaherty. The veteran righty shut out the Mets over seven innings on just two hits in his first start of the series. He’ll be on normal rest as well.
“We just felt that tomorrow’s (Friday) the day,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So he’s lined up.”
The Mets are hoping for some better success off Flaherty, building off their at-bats in Game 4 — even though they lost. They had 10 hits and three walks in the game but managed just the two runs.
The position they’re in is reminiscent of their season overall. New York earned a playoff berth on the last day of the season then were down to their last out in the wild card round against the Milwaukee Brewers before rallying. Now they’ll have to do it again – winning the next three games — to keep their season alive.
“This group has responded so well to adversity all year,” first baseman Pete Alonso said. “The one word I can think for the 2024 Mets, besides Grimace, is resiliency. That’s just who we are.”
Shortstop Francisco Lindor urged his teammates to learn from the last two days – both losses – insisting they “execute” better when they get runners on.
“If you don’t have any belief, you shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You have to fight for what you want. It comes down to one day at a time and executing.”
Peterson could use a little better execution as well. Before getting tagged for three runs in Game 1, he hadn’t given up a run all month. His best outing came against the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1 of the NLDS when he threw three scoreless innings.
The team could have chosen the strategy they used in that game, starting Kodai Senga and piggybacking Peterson but instead chose to let the five-year veteran start and pitch as long as he can. The Mets will need his best against the Dodgers who have scored 30 runs in the first four games of the series.
“I’m anticipating him making a regular start,” Mendoza said. “Our starters are one of the reasons we’re here, and we haven’t got length out of them…And here we are now.”
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