NEW YORK — You have to play near flawless baseball to get to the World Series, and the Cleveland Guardians have done anything but that two games in the American League Championship Series. The New York Yankees took Game 2 on Tuesday night (NY 6, CLE 3) and lead the best-of-seven series 2-0. The series resumes Thursday at Progressive Field.
The Yankees opened the Game 1 scoring with a Juan Soto solo homer and closed it with a Giancarlo Stanton solo homer. In between, New York scored three runs, all aided by wild pitches. Two scored on wild pitches in the third inning. One inning later, wild pitches (plural) advanced the runner to second and third before a sacrifice fly brought him home.
Joey Cantillo’s four wild pitches in Game 1 are the second most ever in a postseason game behind Rick Ankiel’s five in his 2000 NLDS Game 1 unraveling, and the Yankees became the first team ever to score runs on multiple wild pitches in a postseason game. They did it in the same inning. They did it in the span of six pitches! The Guardians kept giving away 90 feet.
“He looked a little sped up at first, but then it just looked like he was having a hard time finding the strike zone,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said about Cantillo after Game 1.
Furthermore, the Guardians issued seven walks in Game 1, including four in a six-batter span in that third inning. Those three wild pitch aided runs? All three runners initially reached on walks. The seven walks in Game 1 were Cleveland’s most in a nine-inning game since Aug. 22. “We just need to attack the zone better, and we didn’t tonight,” Vogt said.
The self-inflicted damage continued in Game 2. In the bottom of the first inning, Gold Glove finalist Brayan Rocchio dropped an Aaron Judge infield pop up with runners on the corners, allowing a run to score and also extending the inning. Tanner Bibee needed 27 pitches to get the game’s first three outs, which contributed at least somewhat to his second-inning exit.
Even when the Guardians did something right, it wound up backfiring. With the bases loaded and one out in the fourth inning Tuesday, Vogt went for the big swing, and pinch-hit David Fry for starting catcher Bo Naylor. Fry popped up a first-pitch fastball in foul territory on the third base side, and Cleveland did not score in the inning.
Pinch-hitting Fry there was the correct move. The Guardians were down 3-0 at the time and, with the bases loaded, it was a chance to put a dent in the scoreboard and get back in the game. And really, swinging at the first pitch was fine too. It was a fastball in the zone and Fry just missed it. Oftentimes the best pitch to hit is the first one, and Fry popped it up. That’s baseball sometimes.
Hitting Fry for Naylor forced light-hitting backup catcher Austin Hedges into the game and the big spot found him an inning later. The Guardians again loaded the bases and this time pushed across two runs in the fifth, and knocked Gerrit Cole out of the game. With the bases loaded and two outs, Hedges and his .152/.203/.220 season slash line came up, and struck out to end the threat.
Hedges also made the final out of Game 1 after coming off the bench late. Again, pinch-hitting Fry for Naylor in Game 2 was the right move, it just didn’t work, and things compounded when Hedges came to the plate in a big spot an inning later.
The Guardians capped off their sloppy play in Game 2 when right fielder Will Brennan bobbled Anthony Rizzo’s double off the side wall not once, but twice. He tried to pick up the ball with his bare hand, dropped it, picked it up, dropped it again, then finally got it in to the infield. The two bobbles allowed Anthony Volpe to score from first base after initially being held at third.
Brennan also dropped Volpe’s line drive with one out in the eighth inning, turning an out into a single. That one did not come back to bite the Guardians (Volpe was stranded) and it was a difficult play (Brennan had to slide), but still, it’s a play a major leaguer should make, and it was not made. It was a free baserunner, more stress on the pitching staff, so on and so forth.
To be fair to Cleveland, the Yankees played sloppy baseball in Game 2 as well. Cole walked four batters in 4 1/3 innings and was behind in the count all night. And, in the sixth inning, the Yankees ran into two outs on the bases. Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Rizzo both got caught wondering too far off second base, sabotaging a potential big inning.
John Sterling, who is on his maiden voyage as the Yankees’ radio broadcaster, brought the heat that inning:
The Yankees gave the Guardians two gift outs — inexplicable baserunning mistakes, truly — in that sixth inning but Cleveland has given them so much more two games into the ALCS. Four wild pitches, seven walks, and three gift runs in Game 1. A dropped pop up, a twice-bobbled double, and Hedges at-bats in Game 2. Free outs, free bases, free runs.
Well-played the ALCS has not been. Both teams have made their fair share of errors, mistakes, and blunders, but Cleveland’s have been more costly. Their mistakes put runs on the board directly and now the Guardians are down 2-0 in the series, needing to win four times in the next five games. It’s doable, they are a very good team, but these mistakes must be cleaned up for it to happen.
