CLEVLEAND, Ohio (92.3) – Wins and loses don’t matter when it comes to the Guardians final destination, but you wouldn’t know it by the way they played Friday night.
Down 3-0 to the Royals in their last homestand of the season with Kansas City starter Brady Singer cruising, it only seemed like a matter of time before the Guardians offense broke loose.
I wish we could do it in the first inning, but I'd rather us do it at some point than never,” said manager Terry Francona.
Jose Ramirez belted his 29th home run of the season, a three-run bomb in the 6th inning to catapult the Guardians into the lead on their way to a 6-3 win over the Royals on Friday night at Progressive Field.
“He (Andres Gimenez) just called it,” Francona said of a high-five caught on camera between the two as Ramirez ball sailed into the seats.
No player has been more valuable to a team this year than Jose Ramirez.
His 192nd career home run tied him with Al Rosen for the 10th-most in franchise history. At this point, it’s a safe bet to put the money on Cleveland. Even when they’re down. The Guardians have a Major League leading 29 wins in their last at-bat.
Especially with Ramirez at the plate.
“At that point I don’t care who called it. I said double, and he (Gimenez) goes ‘no, home run,’” Francona said.
Winning is habitual and the Guardians have made it a routine in the month of September, closing out the month going 21-5 from September 5th through the end of the month. If there were any concern over Terry Francona’s club hitting cruise control to close it out with nine tune-up games to end the season, worry no more.
Since clinching on Sunday, Cleveland is 3-1.
Aaron Civale worked around a pair of home runs and picked up a win in consecutive starts for the first time since June.
“I thought he was pretty good. We were going to try to back him up a little bit, like not let him get to maybe 100. I think he ended up close to 80, which was good,” Francona said. “A couple cutters got hit, but I thought he was pretty sharp. The hope is Wednesday, we'll get him a little further.”
Civale’s season has been interrupted by injury at various times this season with three different stints on the Injured List, but looked sharp allowing 3 runs, 2 earned, over six innings of work Friday night.
“Just stay as locked in as I can, each pitch. The energy that has been visible from this team throughout the year. (I'm) just trying to play off of that. Everyone's coming out here giving it their all every day, and that's all that I can do every fifth day.”
Emmanuel Clase nailed down his MLB leading 40th save of the season in the 9th inning, joining Jose Mesa, Bob Wickman, Joe Borowski, Doug Jones and Michael Jackson as the only Cleveland closers to reach the 40-save milestone.
“Every year starts with that goal,” Clase said. “But for me, it's like a motivation for going next year and try to build from this and get a (bigger) number next year.”
Clase wasn’t the only Guardian to secure a milestone as Steven Kwan went 1-for-4 with a single to collect his 165th hit of the season, the most by a Cleveland rookie since Max Alvis also smacked 165 hits in 1963.