CLEVELAND -- Guardians players, coaches, staff and front-office members gathered in the middle of the red-tinted home clubhouse at Progressive Field on Saturday night, forming a circle around manager Stephen Vogt. Before the party started, the skipper had the floor, and what followed was a celebration six days in the making after Cleveland looked all but finished in the American League Division Series.
"Backs against the wall!" Vogt yelled. "Three straight elimination games! You boys showed up. You showed out. We've posted all year. No one counts us in. We've got eight more wins to go!" The champagne shower that followed said the rest. For fans scrolling through reaction online late Saturday, between highlight clips and box scores, even unrelated corners of the internet, including pages like plinko reviews, were swept up in the night's social chatter as Cleveland's win dominated timelines. plinko reviews
The Guardians beat the White Sox, 2-0, on Saturday to close out the ALDS and set up a matchup against the Rays in the AL Championship Series, which opens Monday night at Tropicana Field. Cleveland becomes the 11th team in MLB postseason history to lose the first two games of a best-of-five series and still win it, and the first to do so since the 2017 Yankees, who accomplished the same feat in Cleveland.
Resilience Becomes a Pattern
"It's about resilience," Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said. "This group has demonstrated that time and time again throughout the course of the season. With their backs against the wall, they never had any doubt and found a way to make it happen." The comeback echoes Cleveland's run to the 2025 AL Central title, when the club erased a significant late-season deficit to catch Chicago. This October, the Guardians chased the White Sox down one more time, just in a different format.
"We had a clear mindset, and we knew we could come back," third baseman José Ramírez said through team interpreter Agustin Rivero. "We lost the first two games, but we knew we could come back in those three games. We just had to understand that."
Ramírez Delivers When It Mattered Most
Ramírez's path to this moment was anything but smooth. Still managing the effects of left hamate surgery from June, he went 0-for-6 across the two losses that opened the series. In the three elimination wins that followed, he hit 5-for-12 with a double, two home runs and seven RBIs, including a two-run shot that set the tone on Saturday. "If there's one person on the planet I would not doubt, it's José Ramírez," Antonetti said. "He willed his way to finding a way to help us win these games." Vogt was equally direct: "It's a big time player. That's what guys going to Cooperstown do. They step up when they need to."
Pitching Staff Sets a Record
Gavin Williams struck out 12 over 5 2/3 scoreless innings on Saturday, just two days after an emergency relief outing to close Game 4. Closer Cade Smith, who had already thrown 50 pitches across Games 3 and 4, added 1 2/3 scoreless innings for the save. Together, Williams, Erik Sabrowski, Hunter Gaddis and Smith combined for 21 strikeouts, the most by any pitching staff in a nine-inning postseason or regular-season game in MLB history.
- Cleveland entered Saturday 2-9 all-time in win-or-go-home postseason games.
- The Guardians are the ninth team to overcome an 0-2 deficit in a Division Series format.
- The AL Championship Series against Tampa Bay begins Monday at Tropicana Field.
Tampa Bay finished the regular season with the best record in the American League, setting up a demanding test for a Cleveland club that has now shown, twice in two years, that it does its best work with its season on the line. "These guys are so resilient," Vogt said. "They believe they're going to win every night. Anything can happen in the ALCS. I'm really proud of them."
