2024-10-06 05:05:03
CLEVELAND — Who said the bye week comes with some rust?
The Guardians were adamant that they created as realistic of an environment as possible in their simulated games this week, as the Tigers were playing in a high-intensity atmosphere in the AL Wild Card Series at Minute Maid Park. Piped-in crowd music blasted through the Progressive Field PA system. Austin Hedges was taunting his teammates to stir the pot. Pitchers were not taking it easy on their hitters.
The Guardians unleashed an explosive first inning, scoring five runs before even recording an out en route to a 7-0 win in Game 1 of the American League Division Series on Saturday afternoon at Progressive Field. After two scrappy runs, Cleveland’s Trade Deadline acquisition Lane Thomas sent a monster three-run shot into the bleachers to make the Guardians the first AL team to score five runs before recording an out in a playoff game. The only other team to do it was the D-backs last year against the Dodgers during an 11-2 win in Game 1 of the NLDS, which Arizona went on to sweep in three games.
Tigers opener Tyler Holton faced just four hitters without recording an out before he was pulled from the game. Just 10 other pitchers in AL/NL history have failed to record an out in a postseason start, though one of those was Wade Miley, who was planned to have that short of an outing, in the 2018 NLCS. The others include Mike Clevinger (2022, Padres), Al Leiter (1999, Mets), Bob Welch (1981, Dodgers), Dennis Leonard (1976, Royals), Bob Moose (1972, Pirates), Harry Taylor (1947, Dodgers), Hank Borowy (1945, Cubs), Charlie Root (1935, Cubs) and Reb Russell (1917, White Sox).
Like Miley, though, Holton was an outlier given that he was deployed as an opener.
“When they punch you with five in the first, it’s hard to overcome,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “I thought Holton rarely gives up back-to-back anything, let alone guys getting on base. And we never recovered.”
Operating on the unorthodox “chaos” strategy — using a bevy of bullpen arms in hopes of neutralizing arguably the most platoon-averse lineup in baseball — the Tigers were unable to capitalize on the favorable matchups they mapped out.
Aside from a critical error from third baseman Zach McKinstry that led to a run with José Ramírez at the plate, each of the other three run-scoring knocks was with Detroit seemingly in a platoon advantage.
“They watered the field when we came in to take ground balls, and they didn’t water it for the game,” McKinstry said of the error, which resulted from an in-between hop. “So it just took a weird hop off the dirt, the first kick. I hoped to make that play but didn’t, and we end up losing the game because of it.”
Also in that fateful first, lefty-hitting Josh Naylor poked a single through the right-side hole vs. the lefty Holton with the infield in, against a sweeper way outside and in an 0-2 count. At that point, Hinch turned to right-hander Reese Olson, whose first pitch was a hanging slider that the righty-hitting Thomas ambushed by pulling it 394 feet and above the big wall in left field.
Then in the sixth, righty-hitting David Fry yanked an outside slider from righty reliever Ty Madden in a 2-2 count for a punctuating, two-run double.
Cleveland had a platoon advantage in an MLB-best 71.6% of its plate appearances in the regular season, per Baseball-Reference — yet, six of their seven runs on Saturday were manufactured in at-bats where Detroit had the advantage.
“We don’t just blindly play the numbers,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “We use our judgment in-game.”
The first inning started with Steven Kwan in a left-on-left matchup. The Guardians knew they needed their leadoff hitter healthy, both physically and mentally, after a grueling second half of the season. He returned from the injured list in the final week of the regular season and looked more like himself at the plate, leaving everyone in the organization optimistic that he’d re-establish himself as the spark plug at the top of the order for the playoffs.
On the second pitch of the game, Kwan ripped a double off the top of the right-field wall, firing up the home dugout. Fry then drew an eight-pitch walk to spark the five-spot. It wasn’t until the seventh batter that Cleveland recorded its first out of the game.
The only other game in which Cleveland has scored five runs in the first inning of a postseason game was one that it lost: Game 1 of the 1997 ALDS against the Yankees in New York. The club went on to win the series, however, 3-2.
The Guardians have exploited matchups all season to reach this point — but in Game 1, the numbers seemingly went out the window, and their sheer talent took over.
