The Yankees have their ALDS foe after a whole lot of strikeouts and a whole lot of innings.
In a historic game two marathon, the Guardians eliminated the Rays from the postseason on a walk-off home run by Oscar Gonzalez in the bottom of the 15th to end what was the longest scoreless tie in MLB playoff history.
Gonzalez led off the bottom of the 15th and took Corey Kluber deep to finally end a game that saw 16 different pitchers used and 39 combined strikeouts, also the most in a game in playoff history.
For the Yanks, this means they will meet a Cleveland team that they beat five out of six times in the regular season, including a walk-off win off star closer Emmanuel Clase back in April, when a game-winning single by Gleyber Torres ended with Yankee fans throwing objects onto the field towards the Guardians outfielders, who had jawed back at fans in the left field seats after rookie Steven Kwan went down after he crashed into the wall, leading to more cheers from the fans.
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Cleveland boasts one of the best late-inning relievers in the game in Clase, James Karinchak, and Trevor Stephan, but the offense as a whole was around league average, and worse overall than the Rays despite having some bright stars in Jose Ramirez and Andres Gimenez.
But with a two-game sweep, the Guardians will get an extra day off on Sunday before meeting the Yanks in the Bronx on Tuesday night in a rematch of the 2020 Wild Card round and the 2017 ALDS.
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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