The Cleveland pitching staff laboured throughout the game until Juan Soto’s home run. In the first game of the AL Championship Series, the Yankees defeated the Guardians 5-2, Carlos Rodón recorded his first postseason victory, and Soto gave New York the lead during a three-run third inning. The pitchers for Cleveland gave up nine walks and five wild pitches. Along with hitting his 13th career postseason home run, Giancarlo Stanton assisted the Yankees in their quest for their first AL pennant since 2009 and their 41st AL pennant. “Winning at the beginning is important,” Stanton remarked. “It has a message all by itself.”
Cleveland tied a postseason record with five wild pitches overall and became just the second club in postseason history to throw two run-scoring pitches in one inning. The Guardians’ pitching staff walked nine batters in a row, for a total of nine walks.
According to Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, “they don’t chase a whole lot.” “If I learn anything from this evening, it’s that we must improve our zone attack.” In five postseason games, the New York batters have walked 36 times. That is their level of capability. The Yankees’ manager Aaron Boone stated, “That’s in their DNA.” “We hammer that—we beat it over.”
Tuesday night is when Yankee Stadium will host Game 2. In a 2-3-2 series format, historically, the teams that win the first game have won 66 out of 99 occasions. Having gone 7 for 11 with two home runs against Alex Cobb prior to the game, Soto had a great record against him. Soto launched a high slider off Cobb into the Yankees’ bullpen to notch his first postseason home run for New York in front of a sell-out crowd of 47,264, which included pop sensation Taylor Swift.
As he came around first base, he made a circle sign with his hands. “It’s just the bullpen and me,” Soto said. “We keep it between us.” After giving up just two hits prior to Brayan Rocchio’s home run in the sixth inning, Rodón recovered from the Yankees’ lone setback in the Division Series.
“My objective was to maintain control over my abilities, both physically and emotionally,” Rodón stated. “I felt like I did that pretty well tonight.”
The margin was stretched to 5-1 in the eighth inning by Stanton’s home run. With an RBI single in the eighth inning, Steven Kwan helped the Guardians close the gap, extending his hitting streak against Clay Holmes to a team-high 11 games. With runners on the corners, Luke Weaver entered the game to pitch. After striking out Will Brennan, who was a pinch hitter, he got José Ramírez to ground out.
After allowing a leadoff walk in the ninth inning, he recorded his fourth save of the postseason by striking out three straight batters.
After walking the bases loaded in the third inning of his first postseason game in eleven years, rookie reliever Joey Cantillo threw two wild pitches that enabled runs to score. Cantillo finished with four wild pitches, one less than the playoff record established by St. Louis’ Rick Ankiel against Atlanta in the 2000 NL Division Series.
The only previous playoff inning in which a club scored twice on wild pitches was in the 2002 AL Division Series between Minnesota and Oakland’s Tim Hudson and Ted Lilly. Cantillo stated, “That’s on me. That performance was obviously the difference in the game.”
Due to injury, Cobb only made five starts this year and went 0-2 in the playoffs. In two and a half innings, he gave up three runs, five hits, and three walks while throwing 36 of his 65 pitches for strikes. He also only gave up one swing and miss.
Cobb, who had hip surgery in October of last year, was forced to exit the game due to back spasms and hip discomfort.
“It’s been there for a while, but obviously I had surgery, and occasionally my tendinitis flares up,” Cobb remarked. “The back will sometimes get tighter along with it.”
With 25 swings and misses in 53 attempts, Rodón matched for the fourth-most misses in a postseason game since pitch monitoring started in 2008. He also struck out nine batters and did not walk anyone. Austin Wells, the catcher, had to throw to first base three times in order to complete the putouts on strikeouts because his pitches were that successful. Boone observed, “He was just totally in control of himself and of his emotions.”
But New York is aware that it was only one game. After defeating Houston in the opening game of the 2019 ALCS, the Yankees dropped their next three games and were eliminated in six games. Stanton stated, “In our opinion, we haven’t done nothing yet.” “We take that as three out of three; we have to win three out of six.”
