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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.”