When Guardians reliever Cade Smith’s 31st and final pitch was lined straight into the glove of a leaping C.J. Kayfus to end the ninth inning Wednesday night, Progressive Field erupted in a sea of red. Smith pumped his fist, catcher Bo Naylor raced to the mound, and the Guardians gathered in celebration — relief and defiance wrapped into one.
This Cleveland team, which stormed back from a 15 ½-game deficit to win the AL Central in September, once again proved its resilience. Down to their final outs of the season, the Guardians delivered a furious eighth-inning rally to defeat the Detroit Tigers 6-1 in Game 2 of the American League Wild Card Series. The victory forces a decisive Game 3 on Thursday night, with the winner advancing to face the Seattle Mariners in the ALDS.
“We’ve been fighting with our backs against the wall for a long time,” manager Stephen Vogt said. “Tonight was just another example of what this team is all about.”
The Guardians’ surge came after seven innings of offensive futility. Aside from George Valera’s solo homer in the first — his first career postseason blast — and a Kayfus single in the fifth, Cleveland managed virtually nothing against Detroit pitching. Making his MLB debut on baseball’s biggest stage, rookie Chase DeLauter worked a walk, while José Ramírez added two of his own. But for most of the night, the bats were silent.
Meanwhile, Detroit kept putting runners on base — 15 in total — but couldn’t land the decisive blow. Hunter Gaddis and Tim Herrin combined to wriggle out of jams, none bigger than Herrin’s seventh-inning escape when he struck out two Tigers with runners at the corners.
That set the stage for the eighth. Brayan Rocchio led off against reliever Troy Melton, who had been tagged for a late homer by Ramírez in a September matchup. Before stepping in, Rocchio got a piece of advice from his All-Star teammate: Look for the fastball. Melton delivered one at 99.9 mph, middle-in. Rocchio didn’t miss, crushing it into the right-field seats for a go-ahead two-run shot — the first time in franchise postseason history that Cleveland hit a go-ahead home run in the eighth inning or later when facing elimination.
The Guardians weren’t done. Steven Kwan and Daniel Schneemann laced back-to-back doubles, and after Melton issued an intentional walk to Ramírez, Bo Naylor capped the eruption with a towering three-run homer off Brant Hurter. Naylor pounded his chest as he rounded first, the crowd of 26,669 roaring in unison.
That five-run frame flipped the script and gave Cleveland all the momentum heading into Thursday’s winner-take-all finale.
“We’ve been counted out all year,” Rocchio said. “But this team never quits. We’re still here.”
The Guardians know the odds: of the 20 teams who lost Game 1 in a Wild Card Series, only four had ever forced a Game 3 — all at home. Just two (the 2020 A’s and Padres) came back to win. But this Cleveland club has been defined by defying odds.
With the season on the line once again Thursday, the Guardians will lean on the same mentality that carried them from the brink of irrelevance to the doorstep of the ALDS.
“Everything we’ve done this year has prepared us for this,” Ramírez said. “We’re ready for tomorrow.”
