CLEVELAND—For the third time in less than a month, the Cleveland Guardians made a semi-circle in the middle 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. So is this team.
The Guardians are an October surprise.
Lane Thomas hit a grand slam off Detroit ace Tarik Skubal and the Guardians, who have won with timely hitting and a shutdown bullpen all season, 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 previous times in the playoffs. They last met in 2022, with the Yankees taking their ALDS in five games.
Game 1 is Monday in the Bronx.
With their $109 million payroll, the Guardians are an oddity among baseball’s final four — the little guys taking on the big-spending Yankees, Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers.
It’s Cleveland against the world.
“We’re playing a very, very good Yankees team,” said Guardians first-year manager Stephen Vogt. “We’ve seen them in the regular season. This is one of the most talented teams in the league. So we know we have our work cut out for us.”
Thomas had five RBIs for the Guardians, who weren’t expected to contend this season. But they won the tough AL Central under Vogt, giving the franchise a chance to stop a World Series title drought stretching to 1948.
“We’re a step closer. Any time you’re a 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 down Skubal, the front-runner for the AL Cy Young Award, to keep it going. The left-hander had not given up a run in 28 consecutive innings — 17 in this postseason — before the Guardians tagged him in the fifth for five runs, tying the most he allowed in 2024.
“They wanted to face him today,” Vogt said. “And if you don’t show up fully confident that you’re going to win, you don’t show up to the field. That’s been our approach all year, and we’re not going to stop now.”
Cleveland pieced together its big inning off Skubal with the team’s familiar, scrappy style dubbed “Guards Ball,” getting three singles — one an infield roller — to load the bases before Skubal hit Ramírez on the left hand to force in a run.
“That’s who we are,” Vogt said. “That’s who that group has been in that room all year. As soon as we get punched, we answer. That’s been our M.O. all year long — 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 over in a July trade with Washington, connected on Skubal’s first pitch, sending it just over the 19-foot-high wall in left-center field.
When the ball touched down, the Guardians’ dugout emptied and the screaming, red-clad Progressive Field crowd erupted in celebration.
It was another monster moment for Thomas, a Tennessee native and the reason why the club added “Rocky Top” to its postgame playlist.
“Definitely had some struggles those first two weeks, or maybe even the month,” Thomas said, reflecting on his rocky start with Cleveland. “I’m just thankful they kind of hung with me and let me get my feet under me and kept giving me at-bats. It felt good to kind of come through late in September and obviously in the playoffs.”
The homer was a rare misstep in what has been a dominant season for Skubal.
“It was one pitch,” Skubal said. “I would love to have it back. But what a swing. In the moment, you think about executing the pitch and I didn’t do it. This will sting a little bit and it should.”
As has been the case all season, Vogt leaned on his MLB-best bullpen, which showed some wear and tear.
After Thomas hit his homer, the Tigers threatened in the sixth, scoring a run on a single by Jake Rogers 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.
The Tigers, though, kept clawing and closed to 5-3 on Colt Keith’s one-out RBI double in the seventh. Eli Morgan came in for Cleveland and struck out 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 saves leader, in the eighth to put the Tigers away.
Throwing one 100 mph fastball after another, Clase got the final six outs. When he retired 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 confidence,“ Clase said through an interpreter. ”I feel that I’m made for that.”
Skubal lost for the first time since Aug. 2, and the Tigers, who missed a chance to eliminate the Guardians at Comerica Park on Thursday, had their unimaginable late-season push end in disappointment.
“I have a heartbroken team for all the right reasons,” said Detroit manager A.J. Hinch, who pushed all the right buttons down the stretch. “I mean we left everything we could on the field against a really good team and we didn’t want the season to end as abruptly as it did.”
Out of contention in August, Detroit regrouped and rerouted its season. Energized by some kids they brought up from the minors, the Tigers took off and went 31-13 after Aug. 11 to earn a postseason berth — one of three AL Central teams to make it.
They swept Houston in the wild-card round before meeting Cleveland in the postseason for the first time after more than 2,300 games between the franchises.
The Guardians took hold of first place in April and never let go. Cleveland became one of the season’s biggest surprises, winning 92 games under Vogt, a former journeyman catcher who had no previous managerial experience.
Before the game, Vogt was confident his team wasn’t done.
“It feels like we’re going to New York,” said Vogt.
The Guardians are on their way.
