Cleveland Forces Game 5 With a Tightly Fought Road Win

The postseason is at its most fun when both teams have something to prove. The ZiPS projections may have been bullish on the Cleveland Guardians coming into the season, but the computer was in the minority, with most observers thinking the Minnesota Twins were the clear favorites in the division. The Guardians are no longer the habitual losers they were from the 1960s-80s, but their last World Series championship was still in 1948. For their part, the Detroit Tigers dominated the AL Central 15 years ago, but lost both of their World Series, dropping eight of nine games. And Detroit wasn’t even supposed to be here; the team traded Jack Flaherty at the deadline and if someone had bowled them over with an offer, Tarik Skubal might be wearing a different uniform this month.

Game 4 was do or die for Cleveland, with the Tigers’ plan of “Tarik Skubal and then pitching chaos” winning two of the first three games. With a bullpen whose second-half performance led the American League with a 2.50 ERA and 3.0 WAR (the Tigers weren’t far behind with a 3.00 ERA and 2.8 WAR), the Guardians had high hopes that they’d be able to send the ALDS back to Cleveland for one winner-take-all showdown. And that’s precisely what they did, winning a closely fought game that was one of the most entertaining we’ve seen so far this October.

Cleveland struck first and in old-school fashion, with a single and a stolen base from Steven Kwan, and singles by Kyle Manzardo and Lane Thomas, the latter of which scored Kwan. But Will Brennan’s groundout on a low changeup allowed Detroit starter Reese Olson to escape the first having only surrendered one run.

Tanner Bibee, Cleveland’s most dependable starter this season, initially stuck to his usual script of high four-seamers mixed with sliders and changeups, staying away from the inside part of the plate against the lefty-heavy Tigers lineup. The bottom of the first started off inauspiciously for the Guardians, as Parker Meadows hit a Texas Leaguer that landed in right-center between Brennan, Thomas and Andrés Giménez. Meadows was aggressive enough to stretch the play into a double, but after a hard-fought Kerry Carpenter strikeout, the Tigers’ bats failed to produce anything more and Bibee escaped unscathed:

Olson got through the second more comfortably, but with Bibee still nibbling the edges of the strike zone, the Tigers were much more patient on their second try, with the first three batters of the inning only swinging at two of 16 pitches. The result was a walk for Colt Keith, a single for Spencer Torkelson on a slider that got a bit too much of the plate, and another free pass for Zach McKinstry. As with Olson in the first, Bibee escaped by the skin of his teeth, with Detroit only scoring a single run on a Trey Sweeney sacrifice fly despite loading the bases with no one out. The inning ended when Jake Rogers hit a 103-mph liner right at shortstop Brayan Rocchio for a double play. Of the 16 balls hit this game with an xBA of at least .500, this was the only one not to end up a hit.

A two-out rally by the Guardians in the third resulted in nothing, and that was the last serious threat for either team for the next couple of innings, though there were plenty of balls in play to keep things interesting despite the lack of scoring.

Olson threw 74 pitches in four innings, and given that that was the most he had thrown since July, when a shoulder strain landed him on the shelf for two months, Hinch turned to Tyler Holton to start the fifth. Holton made just one bad mistake, a changeup that casually floated into José Ramírez’s wheelhouse. Ramírez then casually drove it out to left to give Cleveland a 2-1 lead:

Turnabout being fair play, McKinstry lead off Detroit’s half of the fifth by inside-outing a Bibee fastball into the thick of the Little Caesar’s advertising over the left field wall. Cade Smith took over for Bibee, and his no-nonsense fastball/splitter mix finished off Detroit to end the inning:

Smith — who had been warming up as early as the third if I recall correctly — ran into trouble in his part of the sixth, and after allowing a single to Carpenter and a walk to Riley Greene, Hunter Gaddis came in to face Keith, who struck out on a 2-2 slider. Wenceel Pérez came in to pinch-hit for Torkelson and promptly laced a single into left-center to give the Tigers their first lead of the game, putting them nine outs away from making the ALCS:

The see-saw continued in the seventh. After a clean sixth for Holton, Sean Guenther was next for Team Chaos, getting a quick two outs from Jhonkensy Noel (in for Bo Naylor) and Rocchio. But the Wrath of Kwan continued as he got his seventh hit of the series. David Fry, one of the main protagonists in Cleveland’s blazing start earlier this year, pinch-hit for Manzardo, which prompted Hinch to bring in the righty Beau Brieske. That’s been a solid move this postseason, as Brieske had thrown 5 1/3 hitless innings in four playoff appearances so far. The fifth time was the charm, however, and Fry drove a Brieske fastball into the stands to flip the lead once more:

Still, Gaddis stayed in the game for the Guardians and had a more successful second inning. He froze Rogers on a nasty 76 mph changeup (his fastballs peaked at 97 mph), and after allowing a walk to Jace Jung (who pinch-hit for Carpenter after he tweaked his hamstring), he punched out Matt Vierling with a backdoor changeup he watched for strike three.

A double for Brennan in the eighth off Jackson Jobe gave Cleveland the opportunity to score an insurance run, which would have been a particularly unwelcome development for the Tigers given that the Guardians had the best bullpen in baseball this year by most reasonable measures. But Keith rewarded the organization’s decision to both sign him to an extension and play him at second base, as his diving stop of a two-out Giménez grounder likely saved Detroit from facing a two-run deficit:

The Tigers threatened another reversal of fortune in the eighth, putting runners on first and second against Tim Herrin. Not taking any chances, it was time for Emmanuel Clase to come in and end the nonsense. Clase threw McKinstry and Sweeney seven hard cutters, daring them to drive in a runner. Suffice it to say, the inning ended with Cleveland’s lead intact.

It was a lead they would build on in the ninth, an inning that saw them finally get their insurance run. While the suicide squeeze is one of my favorite plays in baseball, the more conservative safety squeeze — Rocchio didn’t take off with the windup — is still really fun, the sort of play that, when it works, will make you believe for the next week that bunts are the best thing in baseball:

That insurance run turned out to be quite valuable. Justyn-Henry Malloy lead off the ninth with a double off a Clase fastball and advanced twice to score on two groundouts. Back to all cutters, all the time, Clase knocked out Vierling on four pitches, tying up the series and sending it back to Cleveland for a decisive Game 5.

Two Tigers injury questions remain from Game 4. Carpenter’s tweaked hammy may not be immediately impactful if lefty Matthew Boyd is the starter for the Guardians, but it could limit his availability for pinch-hitting duties depending on its severity. What’s more, Rogers had his wrist x-rayed after the game, and while he isn’t a dangerous hitter, he has useful pop against lefties and the downgrade to Dillon Dingler behind the plate is significant. We’ll know more on Friday.

On one level, the Tigers have to be disappointed they weren’t able to knock out the Guardians in four games and get away with only having to use Skubal once, leaving open the possibility of him pitching as many as three starts in the ALCS; now they’ll have to start him in Game 5. But given where the team was on August 10, when their playoff odds bottomed out at 0.2%, the chance to advance to face the Yankees in the ALCS has to feel like a cherry on top of an already phenomenally successful season.

As for the Guardians, they forestall doom for one more game. Skubal’s a tall order, but Cleveland had a 114 wRC+ against lefties in 2024, so the team has a fighting chance. Detroit would be wise to not underestimate the Guardians; they were only two wins shy of leading the AL and had the second-best winning percentage in baseball in the first half.

See you all at The Jake on Saturday (at least on TV)!