It’s always a bummer when win streaks come to an end, but the Guardians need to draw on skills they have learned in a long season to move on and beat the Rays after last night’s ALCS Game two loss in Florida.
Obviously, the moment that stands out from last night is Jose hanging back on a grounder that proceeded to eat him up on the Tropicana Field turf, leading to the three unearned runs the Rays scored. Steven Kwan had a similar moment in game one where a line drive in the outfield skipped past him,
but the Guardians were able to overcome it. The turf will do that to ya, sometimes. You learn from it and adjust for the future. It’s been clear from the beginning that the Guardians won’t be able to make errors like these regularly and win this series against the fundamentally sound Rays. So, Jose and the Guardians will have to both forget what happened in game two and renew their focus in the field for game three and beyond.
Being able to forget is such a crucial life skill. When you’ve made a mistake, or a series of mistakes, you cannot learn to think “I am a mistake maker.” You cannot begin to fear the next opportunity to mess up. The response to an inexcusable error for a human being wanting to thrive in an unforgiving world is to make the choice to actively forgive yourself and know that, as Anne of Green Gables once memorably said, “Tommorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it.” Jose is a multiple-time Gold Glove nominee. Kwan has won a Gold Glove every year he has started full-time in left field. The entire team is more than capable of playing excellent defense and avoiding unnecessary basepath mistakes; they are not mistake-makers even when mistakes happen.
The Guardians also went 1 for 6 with runners in scoring position and left nine runners on base. Their expected batting average of .223 was nearly identical to the Rays’ .225. The game was, essentially, a coin flip, and the Guardians lost the toss. A big part of it was that two of the top three hardest-hit balls in the game were outs from Travis Bazzana. Just as it can feel glorious when the baseball gods smile on your batted balls and let them fall (as seen from games 3-5 in the ALDS and game 1 in the ALCS), it can feel like a cursed cloud has descended along with an incoming weather front, seeking to prevent this magical run from continuing. Instead of entertaining that thought, Bazzana and the entire time need to focus on putting up the kind of sustained approach that results in getting more pitches to hit and trust that if they continue to hit the ball hard, good things WILL happen.
Because, believe it or not, good things do happen. I certainly don’t deserve the love of my beautiful wife, and yet, she does, in fact, love me. I could never have given enough to have the gift of the lives of my four amazing kids and yet here they are, cheering on Jose Ramirez with me. In July, it felt like there was absolutely no way this team would be playing in the ALCS, and, if they did, there was even less of a chance they’d actually have a shot to win a pennant. And, here we are – good things happen, and when we put in the hard work, we put ourselves in position for good things to continue to happen.
Guardians, remember you are a resilent, relentless, talented team. Guardians, forget the times you fall short of your true identity. Let’s make game three a game to remember for the Cleveland faithful making their way to the stadium at a new adjusted time, hoping to be reminded that good things can happen and faith can be rewarded.
