What started as a very negative week ended up being, quite possibly, the best week of the season so far.
Winners at Home
While the home crowd didn’t get much of a show through the first two games of the ALDS, those who stuck around for game five got to watch an Oscar-worthy production. Scoreless through three and a half innings, both pitchers were dueling early. It wasn’t until the bottom of the fourth inning that Steven Kwan got on base with a single and José Ramírez hit a ball just 0.74 feet off the ground into
the right field seats for a two-run home run. The home crowd went absolutely berserk, and Ramírez showed more emotion on the basepath than we’ve seen from him all season. One swing secured their path to the ALCS, and the home crowd got to see it all.
Breaking Their Own Record
The Guardians set a postseason record on Wednesday by striking out 19 White Sox hitters. This was the highest number of hitters to strike out in a nine-inning postseason game, and it was all thanks to Gavin Williams and Co. The record stood for just three days. In game five back in Cleveland, Williams contributed to a total of 21 strikeouts alongside relievers Erik Sabrowski, Hunter Gaddis, and Cade Smith. Not only did this break Cleveland’s previously set record of the most strikeouts in a postseason game, it also set the record for the most strikeouts in any nine-inning game – postseason or regular season. You wouldn’t know it after looking at the stoic faces of Williams and Smith, but Sabrowski and Gaddis couldn’t hold in their emotions.
Improbable Comeback
With the game five win on Saturday, the Guardians became the 11th team in league history to win a five-game series after losing the first two games. Now, Cleveland knows a thing or two about coming back after going down early in a series, but the Guardians were not the team to have that knowledge (I’m shivering just thinking about 2016). However, against all odds, they put all of the pieces together in Chicago and brought the momentum home to Cleveland. They became the first team to do this since the New York Yankees did it (against us…) in 2017.
