CLEVELAND — When the stakes were highest Thursday, the Yankees’ best hitters lived up to the lofty expectations that come with pinstripes, MVP awards and $300 million contracts. Two unheralded Guardians hitters went a step further.
Jhonkensy Noel and David Fry began the night on the Cleveland bench. By the time the game ended, three hours and 57 minutes later, both had hit the biggest home runs of their lives and the Guardians had secured a 7-5 win in 10 innings. After one of the wildest and most memorable games in recent post-season history, Cleveland now trails New York by just one game in the ALCS, 2-1.
"Incredible," said Guardians manager Stephen Vogt. "If there's an emotion, we all felt it on both sides. I couldn't be more proud of our guys."
The Yankees squandered a chance to go up 3-0 in a game that included both transcendent swings and poorly timed mistakes by the visitors.
"Amazing game to witness,” said Yankees manager Aaron Boone. "That was playoff baseball. Both sides just kept coming with haymakers."
"They scratched and clawed their way back in," Boone continued. "Sucks losing like that, obviously, but kind of a classic."
The game took the first of what would be many dramatic turns in the top of the eighth when the Guardians turned to Emmanuel Clase in the hopes that their closer could get the final four outs.
Clase worked a 1-2 count against Aaron Judge then threw a 99 m.p.h. cutter — a pitch most hitters swing through. Judge swung late, but with his power, the ball landed in the right field seats to tie the game 3-3. The MVP favourite faced questions about his playoff performance earlier in the series but now has as many career post-season homers as Babe Ruth (15), including blasts in consecutive games.
“There's one person that could hit that pitch off Emmanuel Clase out of the yard, and he did,” said Vogt. “As a baseball fan, it was really cool. As the opposing manager, it was not.”
Then, with the crowd of 32,531 still reeling, Stanton homered again, running backwards between first and second to scream back at his teammates in the first base dugout. Just like that, the closer who allowed only two home runs all season had allowed two within one inning. The Guardians were stunned. The Yankees were jubilant.
With the ball in the hands of closer Luke Weaver, the Yankees seemed on the brink of moving within one win of their first World Series appearance since 2009. But with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Lane Thomas doubled to set up a mammoth home run from Noel, a pinch hitter.
“Jhonkensy is awesome, man,” said stater Matthew Boyd.
“He's not afraid of the big moment,” Vogt added.
Speaking to the media via interpreter after the game, Noel stressed that there’s more work ahead.
"(I) can't deny it's a very exciting moment," Noel said. "But at the same time ... the goal is to get the World Series. When we get to that point, that's when we're going to be a little more celebratory mode."
From there, the Guardians shut down the Yankees in the 10th to set up a Bo Naylor double followed by another mammoth homer, this one from Fry, who had entered the game as a pinch hitter three innings earlier.
"I blacked out," said Fry, who also hit a go-ahead pinch-hit homer in the ALDS a week ago. "I remember being like halfway down the first baseline looking back at the dugout and looking and saying, ‘Alright, I just have to make sure I touch all four bases.’”
With that, the Guardians countered the homers by Judge and Stanton with two huge home runs of their own. And while the Yankees got in their own way at times, the Guardians played the cleaner game.
In what’s becoming an uncomfortable trend for New York, catcher Jose Trevino made a needless out on the bases in the third inning and Anthony Volpe nearly made another in the ninth. On defence, a line drive ricocheted off Jon Berti’s glove for a single that led to a Guardians run. Once he entered the game to replace Berti, Anthony Rizzo made a costly error.
Meanwhile, the Guardians played a better overall game with 11 hits and scoreless appearances from five different relievers.
After pitching just two innings in his division series start against the Tigers, Boyd gave the Guardians five strong innings this time. An Alex Verdugo double got the scoring started, but otherwise Boyd was sharp, limiting New York to two hits on one run while striking out four and retiring the last 10 batters he faced.
Remarkably, though, Cleveland’s pitching improved once Boyd exited. With Juan Soto, Judge and Stanton due up in the top of the sixth, Abbotsford, B.C., native Cade Smith retired the side on 10 pitches, striking out Judge between two ground ball outs.
From there, relievers Tim Herrin and Hunter Gaddis preserved Cleveland’s lead until Clase entered with the game on the line, setting up an October moment to remember for the Yankees.
“In the biggest moments, you want to maybe try to do too much,” Stanton said earlier this week. “We've done a great job so far of taking what they give us, and we'll continue to do that.”
Stanton did his part. So did Judge. But, somehow, the Guardians’ bench was just as clutch, and Cleveland’s now uncomfortably close to the Yankees.
“An epic battle, and sometimes you're on the losing end,” Boone said. “You dust yourself off and get ready.”
COMMENTS
When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.