For the third time in less than a month, the Cleveland Guardians formed a semicircle in the center of their clubhouse and emptied champagne and beer bottles on each other as “Rocky Top” blasted through the speakers.
The choice of music is unique. This is also the case with this team.
The Guardians are a surprise for October.
Lane Thomas hit a grand slam off Detroit great Tarik Skubal and the Guardians, who have won all season with timely hitting and a shutdown bullpen, followed that script for a 7-3 victory over the Tigers in Game 5 of their AL Division Series on Saturday .
Next up for Cleveland is the New York Yankees in an AL Championship Series between two teams that have crossed paths six times before in the playoffs. They last met in 2022, when the Yankees won their ALDS in five games.
Game 1 is Monday in the Bronx.
With a payroll of $109 million, the Guardians are the odd one out among baseball’s bottom four, pitting the little guys against the big-spending Yankees, Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers.
It’s Cleveland against the world.
“We’re playing a very, very good Yankees team,” Guardians first-year manager Stephen Vogt said. “We saw them in the regular season. This is one of the most talented teams in the league. So we know we have work ahead of us.”
Thomas had five RBIs for the Guardians, who were not expected to compete this season. But they won the tough AL Central under Vogt, giving the franchise a chance to avoid a World Series title drought that stretched until 1948.
“We are one step closer. Every time you get one step closer, the more you want to win,” All-Star third baseman José Ramírez said through an interpreter. “And we want to win it for the city.”
The Guardians had to take out Skubal, the frontrunner for the AL Cy Young Award, to keep things going. The left-hander had not given up a run in 28 straight innings (17 this postseason) before the Guardians tagged him for five runs in the fifth inning, tying the most he allowed in 2024.
“They wanted to face him today,” Vogt said. “And if you don’t show up with full confidence that you’re going to win, you don’t show up on the field. That has been our approach all year, and we are not going to stop now.”
Cleveland put together its big inning off Skubal with the team’s signature scrappy style called “Guards Ball,” getting three singles (one of which was an infield roller) to load the bases before Skubal hit Ramírez on the left hand to to force in a point.
“That’s who we are,” Vogt said. “That’s the group that has been in that room all year. As soon as we get hit, we respond. That has been our approach all year. As soon as we give up a run, our guys come right back.”
That brought up Thomas, who hit a three-run homer in Cleveland’s 7-0 win in Game 1.
The center fielder, who struggled in his first month with the Guardians after coming in a trade from Washington in July, connected on Skubal’s first pitch and sent it just over the 20-foot wall in left center field.
When the ball landed, the Guardians’ dugout emptied and the screaming, red-clad Progressive Field crowd erupted into celebration.
It was another monster moment for Thomas, a Tennessee native, and the reason the club added Rocky Top to the postgame playlist.
“I definitely had some problems those first two weeks, or maybe even the whole month,” Thomas said, reflecting on his rough start with Cleveland. “I’m just thankful that they kind of stuck with me, kept me grounded and kept giving me at-bats. It felt good to get through the end of September and obviously into the play-offs.
The homer was a rare misstep in a dominant season for Skubal.
“It was one pitch,” Skubal said. “I would like to have it back. But what a swing. Right now you’re thinking about running the pitch and I haven’t done it. This will sting a little and it should.”
As has been the case all season, Vogt leaned on his MLB-best bullpen, which was showing some wear and tear.
After Thomas hit his home run, the Tigers threatened in the sixth, scoring a run on a Jake Rogers single and loading the bases with two outs. But Hunter Gaddis struck out Kerry Carpenter, who won Game 2 with a three-run homer in the ninth.
However, the Tigers continued to hang on, closing to 5-3 after Colt Keith’s one-out RBI double in the seventh. Eli Morgan came on for Cleveland and struckout both batters he faced.
Thomas hit an RBI single in the seventh to put the Guardians up by three, and Vogt turned to All-Star closer Emmanuel Clase, the AL’s save leader, in the eighth to put the Tigers aside.
Clase threw one 100-mph fastball after another and got the final six outs. When he struck out Keith on a routine grounder to first, the Guardians could finally exhale and plan for their first ALCS visit since 2016.
“These moments are made for trust,” Clase said through an interpreter. “I feel like I was made for that.”
Skubal lost for the first time since Aug. 2, and the Tigers, who missed the chance to eliminate the Guardians at Comerica Park on Thursday, ended their unimaginable late-season push in disappointment.
“I have a heartbroken team for all the right reasons,” said Detroit manager AJ Hinch, who pushed all the right buttons. “I mean, we gave everything we could on the field against a really good team and we didn’t want the season to end so abruptly.”
Out of contention in August, Detroit regrouped and redirected the season. Bolstered by some of the kids they raised from the minors, the Tigers took off and went 31-13 after August 11 to earn a postseason berth – one of three AL Central teams to make it.
They defeated Houston in the wild-card round before meeting Cleveland for the first time in the postseason after more than 2,300 games between the franchises.
The Guardians took first place in April and never let go. Cleveland became one of the biggest surprises of the season, winning 92 games under Vogt, a former journeyman catcher who had no previous managerial experience.
Before the match, Vogt was convinced that his team was not ready yet.
“It feels like we’re going to New York,” Vogt said.
The Guardians are on their way.