CLEVELAND, Ohio(92.3 The Fan) – It all comes down to one game.
An improbable run, a division championship, 92 wins, 13 of them after trailing in the 7th inning or later; the Cleveland Guardians now look to see if they have just enough magic for one more exclamation point on the 2022 season.
“I don’t think anything is too different, I think if anything people are going to be extremely ready,” said Steven Kwan. “It’s Game 5, the thing everyone has dreamed of their whole lives. I don’t think anyone will have to dig any deeper for that.”
The New York Yankees scored three runs in the first two innings and added another in the 6th to take a 4-2 decision over the Guardians on Sunday night at Progressive Field. forcing a do-or-die Game 5 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on Monday night.
“It feels like it was meant to be,” said catcher Austin Hedges “I feel like it’s our time to go into New York and make a statement.”
Harrison Bader hit his third home run of the series in the 2nd inning and Gerrit Cole was sharp all night, carving up Cleveland batters over 110 pitches, tossing 7 IP, scattering 6 hits, surrendering 2 runs and striking out 8 batters.
“Gerrit just competes. He’s a competitor and wants the ball every day,” said Myles Straw “He’s a dog. He is who he is for a reason. We don’t have to worry about him tomorrow so we can go out there and play our best.”
The loss and the chance to close out the series at home stings for the Guardians, but the clubhouse mood was more anticipatory than melancholy following the loss to even the series at two games apiece. Players and staff were frantically packing up to catch a plane to New York in order to play another game less than 24-hours away.
“You know you’ve winner-take-all game in New York against the Yankees, it’s the coolest thing ever,” Hedges said.
Game 2 of the ALDS, originally scheduled for Thursday, October 13th was postponed due to weather and played Friday afternoon. The gap between games one and two from Tuesday to Friday reshapes how Cleveland could have otherwise utilized its starting pitching staff.
Aaron Civale will be tapped to make the pivotal Game 5 start Monday night.
“I think everyone pictures moments like this when you play this game,” Civale said of starting Monday night. “I think just taking it one pitch at a time and going in there and focusing and enjoying it.”
After surrendering a home run to Bader, in the 2nd, who also homered off Guardians starter Cal Quantrill in Game 1 Quantrill settled in and retired 9 straight at one point.
“He’s capitalizing on bad pitchers,” Quantrill said. “For me, when you throw a pitch there, there’s not very many good outcomes. He’s seen some good pitches to hit, and he’s hit them”
Quantrill struggled locating his cutter and slider effectively eliminating the two pitches from his repertoire for the night.
“I think we went away from the cutter and the slider and went to the changeup and the curve more. I got into a little bit better of a groove as we went.”
Unfortunately, his counterpart, Gerrit Cole, was spectacular for most of the evening. The Guardians wanted to force Cole’s pitch count up early to get to the Yankee bullpen. They adhered to their formula in Game 1, making Cole throw 62 pitches in the first three innings. But the big right-hander settled in after the rocky start.
Josh Naylor hit a solo home run in the 4th inning bring Cleveland within a run at 3-2, but the Guardian’s couldn’t conjure up any more of their late-inning heroics Sunday night.
“I don’t think we ever let ourselves get too high or too low.
I think we always feel like someone is going to spark the plug and today it just didn’t happen”
Guardians’ manager Terry Francona may have been tipping his hand for how he would handle a potential Game 5 on Monday night in the Bronx with Civale on the mound.
Francona, who has masterfully navigated each situation with seemingly the perfect decision opted to go with Eli Morgan and rookie Cody Morris out of the bullpen to relieve starter Cal Quantrill instead of opting for some of his most trusted arms coming out of the back end.
In utilizing Morgan and getting two scoreless innings out of Morris Sunday night, he ensured his top guns will be full systems go on Monday night.
“If you would have told me back in March, we just signed up to play Game 5 in New York, to go to the ALCS, I would have jogged to New York,” Francona said.
Get your running shoes ready, because first pitch from the Bronx is set for 7:07 p.m.