‘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.”
It’s 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby day in Atlanta!
Some of the most dynamic home run hitters in baseball will be taking aim at the Truist Park stands on Monday (8 p.m. ET on ESPN) in one of the most anticipated events of the summer.
While the prospect of a back-to-back champion is out of the picture — 2024 winner Teoscar Hernandez is not a part of this year’s field — a number of exciting stars will be taking the field, including Atlanta’s own Matt Olson, who replaced Ronald Acuna Jr. just three days before the event. Will Olson make a run in front of his home crowd? Will Cal Raleigh show off the power that led to 38 home runs in the first half? Or will one of the younger participants take the title?
We have your one-stop shop for everything Derby related, from predictions to live updates once we get underway to analysis and takeaways at the night’s end.
MLB Home Run Derby field
Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners (38 home runs in 2025)
James Wood, Washington Nationals (24)
Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays (23)
Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins (21)
Brent Rooker, Athletics (20)
Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves (17)
Jazz Chisholm Jr., New York Yankees (17)
Oneil Cruz, Pittsburgh Pirates (16)
Live updates
Who is going to win the Derby and who will be the runner-up?
Jeff Passan: Raleigh. His swing is perfect for the Derby: He leads MLB this season in both pull percentage and fly ball percentage, so it’s not as if he needs to recalibrate it to succeed. He has also become a prolific hitter from the right side this season — 16 home runs in 102 at-bats — and his ability to switch between right- and left-handed pitching offers a potential advantage. No switch-hitter (or catcher for that matter) has won a Home Run Derby. The Big Dumper is primed to be the first, beating Buxton in the finals.
Alden Gonzalez: Cruz. He might be wildly inconsistent at this point in his career, but he is perfect for the Derby — young enough to possess the stamina required for a taxing event that could become exhausting in the Atlanta heat; left-handed, in a ballpark where the ball carries out better to right field; and, most importantly, capable of hitting balls at incomprehensible velocities. Raleigh will put on a good show from both sides of the plate but will come in second.
Buster Olney: Olson. He is effectively pinch-hitting for Acuna, and because he received word in the past 72 hours of his participation, he hasn’t had the practice rounds that the other competitors have been going through. But he’s the only person in this group who has done the Derby before, which means he has experienced the accelerated pace, adrenaline and push of the crowd.
His pitcher, Eddie Perez, knows something about performing in a full stadium in Atlanta. And, as Olson acknowledged in a conversation Sunday, the park generally favors left-handed hitters because of the larger distances that right-handed hitters must cover in left field.
Jesse Rogers: Olson. Home-field advantage will mean something this year as hitting in 90-plus degree heat and humidity will be an extra challenge in Atlanta. Olson understands that and can pace himself accordingly. Plus, he was a late addition. He has got nothing to lose. He’ll outlast the young bucks in the field. And I’m not putting Raleigh any lower than second — his first half screams that he’ll be in the finals against Olson.
Jorge Castillo: Wood. His mammoth power isn’t disputed — he can jack baseballs to all fields. But the slight defect in his power package is that he doesn’t hit the ball in the air nearly as often as a typical slugger. Wood ranks 126th out of 155 qualified hitters across the majors in fly ball percentage. And he still has swatted 24 home runs this season. So, in an event where he’s going to do everything he can to lift baseballs, hitting fly balls won’t be an issue, and Wood is going to show off that gigantic power en route to a victory over Cruz in the finals.
Who will hit the longest home run of the night — and how far?
Passan: Cruz hits the ball harder than anyone in baseball history. He’s the choice here, at 493 feet.
Gonzalez: If you exclude the Coors Field version, there have been just six Statcast-era Derby home runs that have traveled 497-plus feet. They were compiled by two men: Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. James Wood — all 6-foot-7, 234 pounds of him — will become the third.
Olney: James Wood has the easy Stanton- and Judge-type power, and he will clear the Chophouse with the longest homer. Let’s say 497 feet.
Rogers: Hopefully he doesn’t injure himself doing it, but Buxton will break out his massive strength and crush a ball at least 505 feet. I don’t see him advancing far in the event, but for one swing, he’ll own the night.
Castillo: Cruz hits baseballs hard and far. He’ll crush a few bombs, and one will reach an even 500 feet.
Who is the one slugger fans will know much better after the Derby?
Passan: Buxton capped his first half with a cycle on Saturday, and he’ll carry that into the Derby, where he will remind the world why he was baseball’s No. 1 prospect in 2015. Buxton’s talent has never been in question, just his health. And with his body feeling right, he has the opportunity to put on a show fans won’t soon forget.
Olney: Caminero isn’t a big name and wasn’t a high-end prospect like Wood was earlier in his career. Just 3½ years ago, Caminero was dealt to the Rays by the Cleveland Guardians in a relatively minor November trade for pitcher Tobias Myers. But since then, he has refined his ability to cover inside pitches and is blossoming this year into a player with ridiculous power. He won’t win the Derby, but he’ll open some eyes.
What’s the one moment we’ll all be talking about long after this Derby ends?
Gonzalez: The incredible distances and velocities that will be reached, particularly by Wood, Cruz, Caminero, Raleigh and Buxton. The hot, humid weather at Truist Park will only aid the mind-blowing power that will be on display Monday night.
Rogers: The exhaustion on the hitter’s faces, swinging for home run after home run in the heat and humidity of Hot-lanta!
Castillo: Cruz’s 500-foot blast and a bunch of other lasers he hits in the first two rounds before running out of gas in the finals.
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