It Only Takes One Inning, Guardians Top Yankees In Series Opener
I'm not even sure where to start with this one. It's probably a good idea to talk about what went wrong for the Cleveland Guardians before they came back to beat the New York Yankees 3-2 in the ninth inning.
Watch Terry Francona's Postgame Press Conference Here:
I wouldn't have blamed you if you turned this one off after the sixth or seventh inning. Domingo Herman was simply making Cleveland batters look silly at the plate and was untouchable. He pitched 8.1 innings allowing one run and Cleveland had just one hit heading into the ninth inning. That came on a single from Amed Rosario in the first inning.
Nothing was going right for Cleveland until everything was!
Clay Holmes came on in relief of German and immediately gave up a hit to Jose Ramirez and walked Josh Bell to load the bases. This brought public enemy number one Josh Naylor (who still received boos from the home crowd) to the plate.
Naylor ripped a ball through the right side of the infield which scored two runs and tied the game.
The bases were still loaded as Mike Zunino worked a beautiful at-bat against Wandy Peralta fouling off pitches and not biting at balls out of the zone. The full count ended in a walk for Zunino and the Guardians taking the 3-2 lead, which would be the final score.
Now let's get into the pitching.
Cal Quantrill started the game and ended up pitching 7.1 innings after getting into some trouble in the third inning. He allowed two runs including a solo shot from Jose Trevino and an RBI single from DJ LeMahieu, but he settled in after that.
Quantrill deserves some credit for not letting a bad inning get to him. He bounced back and pitched back-to-back eight-pitch innings to keep the team in the win.
Enyel De Los Santos relieved him in the seventh and only had to throw one 1 pitch after picking off Anthony Volpe at first. This single pitch was good enough for De Los Santos to be credited with the win!
Cleveland did not look great for the majority of this game. However, wins such as this one can light a fire in a team which is exactly what they need right now.
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