CLEVELAND (AP) — Gavin Williams’ initial postseason start for the Cleveland Guardians did not go well last year. His second playoff appearance might have been even more painful.
Williams struck out eight and scattered five hits over six-plus innings, but was charged with two unearned runs that allowed the Detroit Tigers to edge Cleveland 2-1 in Game 1 of their AL Wild Card Series on Tuesday.
Errors committed by right fielder Johnathan Rodríguez in the
opening inning and first baseman Jhonkensy Noel in the seventh were the difference in the best-of-three series opener at Progressive Field.
“It’s just the way the game goes sometimes,” Williams said with a shrug in front of his locker. “I can’t really think about that. Honestly, you just have to go to the next pitch. If there is an error, who cares? There are plenty of errors, so it doesn’t really matter.”
But in this case, they did.
The right-hander became the first pitcher to lose a postseason game while working six or more innings with no earned runs allowed since Washington right-hander Stephen Strasburg in Game 1 of the 2017 NL Division Series against the Chicago Cubs.
Williams only walked one during his 88-pitch outing, which went far better than his lone previous playoff outing. He started Game 4 of the 2024 American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees, giving up three runs before being pulled after 2 1/3 innings in a no-decision.
“Especially coming off what I did last year, for them to have faith in me to go today, it makes me feel good,” said Williams, who went 12-5 with a 3.06 ERA in the regular season for the AL Central champion Guardians.
The 6-foot-6, 250-pounder retired 11 of 12 batters during a dominant stretch between the third and sixth, only to wind up as a hard-luck loser thanks to what occurred in the seventh.
Detroit went ahead 2-1 when Zach McKinstry’s one-out sacrifice bunt off reliever Hunter Gaddis scored Riley Greene, who led off with a double against Williams and was on third because of Noel’s poor footwork one batter later.
Wenceel Pérez smacked a sharp grounder off Noel’s glove that ricocheted to second baseman Brayan Rocchio. He threw to first, where Noel had hurried back, but missed the base with his right foot. Williams was removed following the error.
“The play went really fast and then when I tried to step, I was a little over the base,” Noel said through team interpreter Agustin Rivero. “My mindset was trying to catch the ball and try to make a play at third (on Greene).”
Rodríguez’s misplay in the first came on a hard-hit single by Kerry Carpenter that Rodríguez fumbled while attempting to pick it up near the wall, giving Carpenter an extra base. Spencer Torkelson followed with a two-out single before Williams struck out Greene.
“It was more like a mental error,” Rodríguez said through Rivero. “I wanted to speed it up, but it was a mental error.”
Somewhat fittingly, the Guardians’ final chance to extend the game also was undone by a lack of execution. José Ramírez legged out an infield single against closer Will Vest leading off the ninth, and sprinted to third when shortstop Javier Baez wildly threw to first after a diving stop.
With 26,186 fans — the smallest playoff crowd in ballpark history — on their feet, Vest struck out George Valera and personally tagged out Ramírez on Kyle Manzardo’s grounder back to the mound. C.J. Kayfus popped out to end the game.
Ramírez declined to formally speak with reporters, but said he was running on contact — which manager Stephen Vogt confirmed.
“That ball goes two feet either way, he scores, but it just happened to go right back to Vest,” Vogt said. “We run the bases aggressive and I wouldn’t play that any other way. You just hope with a runner on third and no out that we could get a ball to the outfield, and we weren’t able to do it.”
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