Livescore
Get ready to “rock the baby” – IYKYK – and, perhaps, witness another super-competitive playoff series between the Yankees and Guardians when the AL Championship Series begins Monday night in The Bronx.
Two years ago, these teams met in an AL Division Series that would’ve been worthy of seven games, not just five. Cleveland pushed the Yankees to the brink and the Bronx Bombers had to win a game in The Land just to force a winner-take-all Game 5 back home. Then, behind a strong Nestor Cortes outing and homers from Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, the Yanks won to advance.
Now, possibly, we can get two more games. Juicy.
The Yankees (94-68 during the regular season) are the AL’s top seed and the Guardians (92-69) were next. Both smashed the “narrative” that getting a first-round bye is, somehow, a bad thing.
The Yankees, as always, have a ton of brand-name players. But the Guardians have the best bullpen in the game – it’s not particularly close – and a megastar of their own in José Ramírez. This is gonna get good.
WHAT THE YANKEES HAVE GOING FOR THEM
Their offense, obviously, can be a beast, though they only outscored the Royals by two runs in the Division Series. Can the Yankees be pitched to? We’ll find out. Still, their power must be reckoned with – they hit 52 more home runs than Cleveland during the regular season, which is like an average season’s worth of Judge.
Speaking of the Yankee captain, he will continue to get postseason scrutiny. He was 2-for-13 (.154) against the Royals with five strikeouts and five walks, though he mashed a couple balls late in the series that offered hope he’s getting hot. He has 13 homers in 48 career postseason games, but makes a ton of outs, too. His lifetime Postseason average entering the series is .207. Still, at the risk of repeating ourselves, at some point this guy is going to wreck an entire series himself. He’s just too good not to.
The pinstriped offense also boasts Juan Soto, the modern-day Ted Williams who is also one half of a Yankee duo with Judge that often gets compared to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Whatever Hall-of-Famer you like to use, these guys are in heady company. Add in Postseason Giancarlo Stanton, another power force, and they could be straining Statcast’s exit-velocity and distance measurements.
Gerrit Cole is their No. 1. He had one shaky start and one really good one in the Division Series, but his work against Cleveland two years ago was huge – 2–0, 2.03 ERA in two starts. Without him, they would not have won that series. Same might be true this time.
WHAT THE GUARDIANS HAVE GOING FOR THEM
Let’s begin with that suffocating bullpen. Cleveland’s relievers fashioned a 2.57 ERA during the regular season, by far the best in MLB, and more than a run better than the No. 6 Yankees (3.62), who have a fine bullpen themselves. The Guardians also led baseball in, among other categories, relief average-against (.203) and opponent OPS (.604). They had 60 different games in which they got at least three scoreless innings from the pen. Talk about a weapon.
Emmanuel Clase is the game’s best reliever right now and his cutter-slider combo is a devastating mix. He and his 0.61 regular-season ERA will certainly be a featured player in this series. But he’s not the only overwhelming Cleveland relief pitcher. Clase, Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis and lefty Tim Herrin all made at least 70 appearances and all had an ERA under 2.00. That’s the first time in MLB history a team had four pitchers with those numbers.
Yes, Clase gave up a huge home run to Kerry Carpenter of the Tigers in the ALDS. You probably heard about it. But it was such a big deal because it’s so unusual – he’s only given up 14 home runs in his entire career, including that one, a rate of 0.39 per nine innings.
Ramírez is one of the game’s greats, even if he doesn’t get the kind of attention other stars do. He had 39 homers, 41 steals and 118 RBI this season. He’ll be looking to seize the moment, no doubt. Josh Naylor pounded 31 homers and knocked in 108.
Naylor famously “rocked the baby” in celebration two years ago after homering off Cole in the Division Series, though he later said it was not directed at Cole or the Yanks and it was something he’d done during the season, too. Still, Gleyber Torres imitated the celly when tapping second base for the series-ending out, so some kind of feels were definitely percolating. Who knows if this will come up again, but there’s a lot at stake in the ALCS and emotions run hot. Yanks should probably concentrate on Naylor’s thump, not a past celebration.
THE YANKEES WILL WIN IF…
They flex their power, particularly against the Guardians’ rotation, which gave up the fifth-most home runs among MLB starting staffs. Stanton proved, again, against the Royals that he’s a postseason monster. He was the best offensive player in the series, finishing with two doubles, a key homer, four RBI and a 1.132 OPS. His career Postseason OPS (.964) is fifth all-time among Yankees, which is a pretty lofty group topped by, of course, Ruth and Gehrig.
The Yanks got some solid at-bats in the Division Series from Torres and Anthony Volpe. Volpe, in his first taste of the postseason, showed some decent patience, walking four times. Torres walked five times and homered and doubled.
With the Guardians holding such a bullpen advantage over, well, everyone, the Yanks could use a continuation of what their own bullpen did in the Division Series. Led by Luke Weaver and Clay Holmes, Yankee relievers were fantastic, allowing only an unearned run and eight hits in 15.2 innings.
With Cole, Game 1 starter Carlos Rodon, Clarke Schmidt, and Luis Gil, the Yankees should have an advantage among the starting rotation. The Guardians and first-year manager Stephen Vogt will be trying to get to their own bullpen as soon as possible to unleash Clase and Smith and company.
THE GUARDIANS WILL WIN IF…
They cobble together enough offense and let their bullpen cook. The Guardians tied for the lowest average exit velocity during the regular season, according to baseball-reference.com, and only scored 4.4 runs per game, a smidge above MLB average. Unless Ramírez is breaking up games or Naylor is hitting the ball out, they are not flashy. In the ALDS, they had a stretch of 20 innings in which they did not score.
But they also beat the game’s best pitcher this season – Detroit’s Tarik Skubal – in a winner-take-all Game 5. Does Cleveland have a knack for big hits? Lane Thomas, a deadline acquisition, broke open Game 5 with a grand slam off Skubal; David Fry hit a key Game 4 homer.
They did use a squeeze play against the Tigers to snag an insurance run, so they’ll clearly put on a play to score and not just wait for a big swing. Look for the Guardians to run to create offense, too. They were tied for fifth in MLB with 148 steals, including Ramírez’s 41 and 30 by Andrés Giménez.
Outfielder Steven Kwan should be a factor. He led Cleveland with a .292 average and hit a career-best 14 homers during the regular season and then went 11-for-21 (.524) with six runs in the Division Series. He’s a contact demon, striking out only 9.4 percent of the time, well below the MLB average of 22.6 percent.
PREDICTION
Yankees in seven games. They have enough offense to stall Cleveland’s biggest advantage – a marvelous bullpen’s impact is muted if the Yanks take early leads against the Guardians’ starters – and Cole, who is starting Game 2, figures to be a big factor again, adding to the allure of teams having an October ace in a bullpen age. Cleveland will try to make things happen, which could make things interesting and lead to wins, since the Yankees endured puzzling lapses at times during the regular season. Well-produced small ball, as gorgeous as it might be in October, is probably not enough to conquer raw power and patience, though.
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