For the third time in less than a month, the Cleveland Guardians made a semi-circle in the middle of their clubhouse and emptied champagne and beer bottles on each other as Rocky Top blasted through the speakers.
The choice of music is unique. So is this team. The Guardians are an October surprise.
Lane Thomas on Saturday hit a grand slam off Detroit ace Tarik Skubal and the Guardians, who have won with timely hitting and a shutdown bullpen all season, followed that script for a 7-3 victory over the Tigers in Game 5 of their American League Division Series.
Photo: AFP
Next up for Cleveland is the New York Yankees in an American League Championship Series between two teams that have crossed paths six previous times in the playoffs. They last met in 2022, with the Yankees taking their division series in five games.
Game 1 is today in the Bronx.
With their US$109 million payroll, the Guardians are an oddity among baseball’s final four — the little guys taking on the big-spending Yankees, New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers.
It is Cleveland against the world.
“We’re playing a very, very good Yankees team,” Guardians first-year manager Stephen Vogt said. “We’ve seen them in the regular season. This is one of the most talented teams in the league. So we know we have our work cut out for us.”
Thomas had five RBIs for the Guardians, who were not expected to contend this season, but they won the tough AL Central under Vogt, giving the franchise a chance to stop a World Series title drought stretching to 1948.
“We’re a step closer. Any time you’re a step closer, the more you want to win,” All-Star third baseman Jose Ramirez said through an interpreter. “And we want to win it for the city.”
The Guardians had to take down Skubal, the front-runner for the AL Cy Young Award, to keep it going. The left-hander had not given up a run in 28 consecutive innings — 17 in this post-season — before the Guardians tagged him in the fifth for five runs, tying the most he allowed this year.
“They wanted to face him today,” Vogt said. “And if you don’t show up fully confident that you’re going to win, you don’t show up to the field. That’s been our approach all year, and we’re not going to stop now.”
Cleveland pieced together its big inning off Skubal with the team’s familiar, scrappy style dubbed “Guards Ball,” getting three singles — one an infield roller — to load the bases before Skubal hit Ramirez on the left hand to force in a run.
“That’s who we are,” Vogt said. “That’s who that group has been in that room all year. As soon as we get punched, we answer. That’s been our M.O. all year long — as soon as we give up a run, our guys come right back.”
That brought up Thomas, who hit a three-run homer in Cleveland’s 7-0 win in Game 1.
The center fielder, who struggled in his first month with the Guardians after coming over in a July trade with Washington, connected on Skubal’s first pitch, sending it just over the 19-foot-high wall in left-center field.
When the ball touched down, the Guardians’ dugout emptied and the screaming, red-clad Progressive Field crowd erupted in celebration.
It was another monster moment for Thomas, a Tennessee native and the reason why the club added Rocky Top to its post-game playlist.
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