As it turns out, if you complain enough that people aren't showing up, they eventually do. And that's how we get a Game-5-forcing Guardians win led by David Fry, Jose Ramirez and Emmanuel Clase. You complain enough, and they eventually start hitting.
The Tigers have been more of a match for the Guardians than anybody thought, and with Reese Olson, Trey Sweeney and Riley Greene providing cover for most of the game, it was getting slightly worrying that the Guardians wouldn't be able to offer up a rebuttal, once again. I'm still worried about the power of the first round bye, and the Guardians are the kind of team that I figured was better than the bye slump. And if the Tigers won this game, I'd be drafting a letter to Rob Manfred that he'd no doubt be throwing straight into the shredder. So thankfully, this soon became the David Fry game at the expense of the Guardians' bullpen.
The Guardians are a great team, and they could definitely go deep if they're able to get past Game 5. Now...I used to be more definite that they WOULD be able to hop this hurdle, and with the Tigers starting Tarik Skubal in Game 5 it may be way more difficult for them to do so, but I still favor Cleveland. If they lose, take your pick, you can blame it on the bye or you can blame it on Skubal.
The last time the Yankees were in the ALCS with a team that was not the Houston Astros was 2012, 12 years ago. It came after a very tight ALDS with Baltimore that, quite frankly, we shouldn't have won. By the end of that we were exhausted, and had no energy left. There is a very big chance that the Yankees' first ALCS in 12 years could be against the very team that swept us then, the Detroit Tigers. This is, however, a very different Tigers team. Much younger, much scrappier, much more unpredictable. And the thing is that even if the Guardians make it instead, that's also a scrappy, young, unpredictable team as well. So either way, it will not be easy to win our first ALCS in 15 years.
But I think about how tense those first two games were against the Royals in New York. It was neck and neck, biting back and forth. And then I think about these two in Kansas City. Close, but manageable. It took us time, but we figured them out, thanks to great pitching from Clarke Schmidt and Gerrit Cole, and great offensive work from Giancarlo Stanton, Gleyber Torres and Juan Soto. Once Luke Weaver closed the door, the haze lifted, and this team waltzed to homefield advantage in an Astros-less ALCS. I couldn't believe it in a sense, but seeing as the Royals were a tough but still beatable opponent, I'm happy it came that easy to us.
The bye tried to hold the Yankees back, and it couldn't. We'll see how they do against whoever comes out on top in Cleveland this weekend. But I'm excited for the prospect of a Yankee team that *could* go further, for once.
Somebody inevitably had to be the bridesmaid in this AL Central scuffle, and it needed to be someone like the Royals. They had a wonderful season, finally succeeding where other Matt Quatraro teams had failed and running into the playoffs, then taking down Baltimore. They had great moments in this series, courtesy of people like Cole Ragans, Salvador Perez, Michael Massey and Vinnie Pasquantino. Even tonight, Tommy Pham still went 3 for 3, with three solid hits. Even when this team is down, somebody like Pham keeps chasing, which is EXACTLY WHY YOU GET SOMEONE LIKE PHAM.
The Royals will be back with a vengeance next year, hopefully with a fully healed Pasquatch, a more October-ready bullpen, and possibly even a bigger year from Witt? The sky seems to be the limit.
Tomorrow, we get to see who'll be hosting the Mets next week. I still think it'll be San Diego but you can never quite count the Dodgers out, can you?
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