They may have won it in five games, but the New York Yankees did not make the American League Championship Series easy on themselves.
After splitting a magnificent Games 3 and 4 on Thursday and Friday, the Yankees downed the Cleveland Guardians 5–2 Saturday evening in 10 innings to win their first AL pennant since 2009. The Guardians jumped out to an early 2–0 lead, only to watch New York designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton club a tying two-run home run to tie the game in the sixth inning.
Both bullpens worked scoreless seventh, eighth and ninth innings, and Cleveland pitcher Hunter Gaddis was able to get two outs in the top of the 10th. Yankees right fielder Juan Soto, however, all but ended affairs by clobbering a go-ahead three-run home run to dead center.
The Guardians went quietly in the bottom half of the inning, and New York can rest up and await the winner of the NLCS. Here are four takeaways in the aftermath of a short series to remember.
On a per-at-bat basis, Stanton is the 10th-most prolific home-run hitter in baseball history—and yet, even that statistic could not foretell his playoff explosion against Cleveland.
At seemingly every critical turn of the ALCS, there was Stanton hitting a home run. It was Stanton putting New York ahead in Game 3 with a two-run blast; it was Stanton putting Game 4 virtually out of reach with a three-run shot; it was Stanton tying Game 5 with a two-run dinger.
In his three playoff series against the Guardians, as TBS's broadcast noted Saturday, Stanton has taken 41 at-bats and gotten eight hits. All eight—all eight, every one—have been home runs.
Much has been made of Cleveland's approach to pitching this postseason, as the Guardians—uncharacteristically short on quality rotation arms this season—has asked their bullpen to carry a large workload. Pitchers Emmanuel Clase, Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis and Tim Herrin—stellar in the regular season—all looked gassed at times in the ALCS.
When manager Stephen Vogt kept cruising starter Tanner Bibee in to face Stanton in the sixth, how was he rewarded? By Bibee missing his location—the only truly bad pitch he made all evening—and Stanton crushing his offering into the Progressive Field bleachers. After a solid start, the wheels ultimately came off Vogt's bullpen in the 10th inning, with Gaddis surrendering the go-ahead home run to Soto.
Fifteen years—the time that has lapsed since the Yankees' last pennant—may seem small in the grand scheme of baseball history, but it is an eternity to fans in the Bronx. In the decade and a half since New York's '09 World Series title, the Yankees have bid farewell to their turn-of-the-century core and welcomed in a new generation of stars.
Chief among them is center fielder Aaron Judge, consecrated a future Big Apple icon almost as soon as he broke out in 2017. Judge had to take a litany of blows in the playoffs, finding success difficult as the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox mastered his squad. However, New York outlasted its late-2010s adversaries, flexed its financial muscle to construct a star-studded roster around him, and watched Judge evolve into a future Hall of Famer. The result: pennant number 41.
In June of 1997, the Yankees won a 3–2 game over Cleveland that made them the first American League team to beat another American League 1,000 times. Though New York would fall to Cleveland in the postseason that year, the statistic underlined the Yankees' complete mastery over owner George Steinbrenner's hometown team.
Amazingly, even as the Guardians have persevered as one of baseball's most effective organizations, New York's dominance has grown more pronounced. With the Yankees' victory Saturday night, they have now ended four of the last eight and three of the last five Cleveland seasons.
Each of the four series has taken on a different character: 2017's ALDS upset, 2020's nail-biting wild-card sweep, 2022's gritty comeback, and 2024's heart-stopping slugfest. Time and time again, the two teams have brought out the best in each other, but the Guardians haven't provided the knockout blows necessary to advance—and elevate a compelling feud into a truly great rivalry.
