Guardians Won't Quit On Clase, Need Him To Rebound vs. Yankees

The Cleveland Guardians have the best closer in baseball in Emmanuel Clase. But after blowing a save in Game 3 of the ALCS, his teammates had his back and came from the depths of despair to beat the Yankees in extra innings, 7-5.

Oct 12, 2024; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Guardians pitcher Emmanuel Clase (48) celebrates a strike out 8th against the Detroit Tigers during game five of the ALDS for the 2024 MLB Playoffs at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-Imagn Images / David Richard-Imagn Images

Mathematically, a 3-games-to-none deficit doesn’t eliminate you in a best-of-seven series. But realistically, your days are numbered. In other words, Thursday's ALCS Game 3 was a must win game for Cleveland, which trailed in the series 2-0.

When Stephen Vogt needs outs at the end of the game, he never hesitates to hand the ball to his closer. But for the second time this postseason, Emmanuel Clase flinched.

The Guardians had a 92.9 percent chance to win Thursday when Gleyber Torres grounded out for the second out in the top of the eighth inning. But after Hunter Gaddis unintentionally ("intentionally") walked Juan Soto, Stephen Vogt turned to the best closer in Cleveland baseball franchise history to get the presumptive American League MVP out to end the inning.

Then the unimaginable happened. Again.

For the second time this postseason, Emmanuel Clase hiccuped under pressure. He made a good pitch to Judge, but the towering right-handed hitter ripped a 99 mph cutter about two feet over the right field fence for a game-tying, 2-run homer. In a golf analogy, Judge hit a 2-iron stinger that felt like it was going to be a line drive forever. The launch angle on his home run was only 18 degrees, which is far below Major League average.

ALLLLLLLLLL RISE!

AARON JUDGE GAME-TYING HOME RUN 🤯 pic.twitter.com/P2tQxBItoi

— MLB (@MLB) October 17, 2024

Believe it or not, Cleveland still had a 58 percent chance to win when the game was tied at 3-3.

How could Mr. Automatic give up another home run of such monumental consequence? Detroit's Kerry Carpenter launched a 2-run shot in Game 2 of the ALDS that silenced Progressive Field and lifted the Tigers to a shocking win just 10 nights ago.

It's hard to describe what happened next, because it was even more unthinkable than Judge's home run.

Giancarlo Stanton took him deep to center field for a solo shot, clearing the fence by just a few feet. This time, Clase threw a slider that sat right over the middle of the plate and Stanton punished him dearly for the mistake.

BIG G
BIG HOMER
OH MY GOODNESS
THE @YANKEES LEAD pic.twitter.com/BrYT6NYMsv

— MLB (@MLB) October 17, 2024

Suddenly, a must-win game for the Guardians morphed into a nightmare.

New York's three best hitters - Soto, Judge and Stanton - had hit five home runs in the first three games of the series. But the fact that two of them came off Clase was a gut-punch that the Guardians fans were having a hard time digesting.

But not the Guardians themselves.

"Our ballclub is next guy up," Matthew Boyd said postgame when asked about Clase's tough night. "That guy is an all-world closer. He has the ball every single time with the game on the line, and I'm going to take him over whoever is in the box every single time. Our whole club feels the same way. That guy is amazing. What happened after is just who we are as a team. We just keep fighting. Like I said, it's in our DNA, and that's what we hang our hat on."

Clase is a bonafide superstar in Major League Baseball, and every single team would do whatever it took to have a player of his caliber at the back end of the bullpen.

But he's given up more earned runs (six) in five postseason appearances than he gave up in 74 regular season games (five). He's also allowed three postseason homers after surrendering just two during the entire regular season. Thursday's blown save snapped a stretch of 36 consecutive saves.

"There's not enough adjectives to talk about how good he (Clase) was this season," David Fry said postgame, after saving the day and hitting the walk-off home run in the 10th. "He set records for just about everything you can do as a closer, and sometimes you just hand him the ball, and we don't even watch the game. I feel like we are chatting up because we know the game is over."

"So we were obviously shook, but it was just like, you know what, it's time we give him a break," Fry continued. "He carried our team all year long in the ninth inning, and it's our time to pick him up, and I'm glad we did."

Thursday night marked the first time Cleveland has allowed back-to-back home runs in the playoffs since George Springer and Jose Altuve took Corey Kluber deep in the 2018 ALDS.

"I don't think there's anything to console him about because we ended up winning the game, and that happens to the best pitchers, and we're lucky to have the best pitcher in the world," Jhonkensy Noel said after hitting his game-tying home run with two outs in the ninth inning to send the game to extras. "The important part is that we won. That's going to happen, and he's saved us so many times that this is the least we could do for him."

Ultimately, Cleveland beat the Yankees in one of the most memorable October comebacks in franchise history. Noel's ninth inning home run and Fry's tenth inning game-winning blast shook the foundation of Progressive Field, shell-shocked the Yankees and lifted Cleveland out of an almost unrecoverable 3-0 series deficit.

Since at least 1923, only two MLB teams have hit MULTIPLE 2-out home runs in the 9th-inning-or-later of a Postseason game:

• 2024 CLE (ALDS G3, 10/17 v. NYY; Jhonkensy Noel & David Fry)

• 2001 NYY (WS G4, 10/31 v. ARI; Tino Martinez & Derek Jeter)#ForTheLand | #GuardsBall pic.twitter.com/rKFJYx1JSk

— Luke Potosky (@LukePotosky) October 18, 2024

But if the Guardians are going to win the World Series this year, they need Emmanuel Clase to flush a really bad night from his memory bank and come back on Friday as the player he's proven he can be.