CLEVELAND — David Fry crushed a Clay Holmes sinker into the left field seats, the Cleveland Guardians burst out of the third base dugout and the fireworks started going off at Progressive Field. With a walk-off, extra-innings, 7-5 win over the Yankees, the Guardians are right back in the ALCS.
It was a fitting ending to a back-and-forth thriller in front of a sold-out crowd — one of the most memorable games in recent post-season memory. Just two innings earlier, Yankees stars Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton had improbably hit back-to-back home runs against the game’s most dominant closer, Emmanuel Clase.
With the ball in the hands of closer Luke Weaver, the Yankees seemed to be on the brink of taking a 3-0 lead and climbing to within one win of their first World Series appearance since 2009. But with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, Lane Thomas doubled to set up a mammoth pinch-hit home run from the powerful Jhonkensy Noel.
From there, the Guardians shut down the Yankees in the 10th to set up a Bo Naylor double followed by Fry’s walk-off homer.
Earlier, the Guardians seemed to be on the way to a much simpler win.
After pitching just two innings in his last start against the Tigers, Matthew Boyd gave the Guardians five strong innings this time. An Alex Verdugo RBI double got the scoring started, but otherwise, Boyd was sharp, limiting New York to two total hits on one run while striking out four and retiring the last 10 batters he faced.
A Kyle Manzardo two-run home run gave the Guardians the lead in the third inning, their first lead of the series. And then, remarkably, Cleveland’s pitching improved once Boyd left the game. With Juan Soto, Judge and Stanton due up in the top of the sixth inning, Abbotsford, B.C. native Cade Smith entered the game with the Guardians leading by one. Then, in the span of 10 pitches, Smith retired the side, 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, expand a little 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.”
But despite the big swings, the Yankees played sloppy defence and ran the bases poorly. When their pitchers couldn’t hold a narrow lead, it was time for Cleveland to re-assert itself in the ALCS.
