If there’s one thing Stephen Vogt hammered home all season long, it was “playing our brand of baseball.”
And that’s exactly what we saw from the Guardians in their Game 1 match up with the Tigers. A team that is calm when under pressure. A team that gets guys on base and brings them home. And a bullpen that doesn’t give up any runs. That’s Guardians Baseball. AJ Hinch playing the chaos card with the Tigers bullpen didn’t rattle the Guardians one bit as they sailed to a 7-0 victory in Game 1 of their ALDS matchup.
“It’s awesome,” leadoff man Steven Kwan said, talking about their brand of baseball following the game 1 victory. “Living and dying by the home run is hard sometimes, but being able to manufacture runs in different ways is cool…with that and our lights-out bullpen it’s tough to beat us.”
The first inning set the tone for the whole game, with Tanner Bibee striking out his first batter, followed by the lineup putting five runs on the board in the bottom of the inning.
Kwan’s lead-off double marked his fifth career lead-off hit in the post season, tying Kenny Lofton for the most in franchise history. And Lane Thomas’ 3-run bomb four batters later made him the second player in Cleveland history to hit a home run in their first career post season plate appearance – the first being Roberto Pérez in the team’s Game 1 ALDS match up with Boston in 2016.
It wasn’t just a five-run first inning – it was five runs before they even recorded an out, making them the first AL club to score five runs before recording an out in a playoff game. The only other club in MLB to reach that milestone was the Diamondbacks in their Game 1 NLDS matchup with the Dodgers in 2023.
Bibee positioned himself as the ace of the rotation in the regular season, and cemented himself as that in game 1, giving up only four hits, no runs, and striking out 6 through 4.2 innings of work. Staying even-keeled through the rest of his outing made the performance even more impressive.
“It's definitely tough. I mean, I think to see what they did in the first inning, kind of grind through their opener, kind of get them out of the game pretty quick, I mean, it was awesome. That's kind of what we've been built on,” the righty said after the game, when talking about balancing his emotions after seeing the lineup put five on the board. “I feel like for me I was trying to stay as steady as possible. Because if they put up five in the first, then I go out there and give up a couple runs, that five doesn't mean as much.”
And the bullpen did what the bullpen does – holding lineups to zero runs – starting with Cade Smith punching out all four batters that he faced, and finishing with Emmanuel Clase. While it may have seemed like putting in Clase in the 9th when the Guardians had a 7-0 lead wasn’t necessary, there was a method to Stephen Vogt’s madness.
“Obviously, the way the game went, we wanted to use our guys, nobody's pitched in week, and you don't want to let that game get away,” Vogt said following the win. “Anybody in our bullpen we feel really confident about, but when you have the opportunity with a day off tomorrow, you're going to use your guys to finish the game.”
Losing momentum wasn’t a factor for the Guardians in their week of rest, but keeping it into game two is going to be critical when they face one of the best pitchers in baseball in Tarik Skubal. But as this team has proved time and time again, as long as they continue to play Guardians Baseball, they’re going to continue winning.