CLEVELAND — It was a perfect afternoon for postseason baseball at Progressive Field, and Guardians fans had waited long enough.
Cleveland had earned a coveted first-round bye, bypassing the harrowing wild-card round, but also an additional five days for fans to anticipate the unmatched feeling of cheering on their team in the month of October. A healthy contingent of Tigers supporters were scattered throughout the venue on Saturday, eager to see if their squad could stay hot after taking down the Astros on the road.
This day, though, would be all about the home team. Any concerns about Cleveland starting slowly due to the extended layoff — one that became even longer than expected after Game 162 vs. Houston was rained out — were squashed before the Tigers had even recorded an out in the Guardians’ eventual 7-0 victory in Game 1 of this ALDS.
Steven Kwan drilled opener Tyler Holton’s second pitch off the right-field wall for a leadoff double that came within inches of being a leadoff homer, and with that, the tone was set. David Fry, Cleveland’s unlikely All-Star with a .430 OBP against southpaws this season, drew a walk. Jose Ramirez chopped a hard ground ball that third baseman Zack McKinstry couldn’t handle, and it trickled into the left-field corner, allowing Kwan to score the game’s first run.
Josh Naylor followed with a single through the right side to score Fry and put runners on the corners with Lane Thomas coming up. Thomas’ track record of punishing left-handed pitching — .880 career OPS against southpaws, compared to a .680 mark vs. right-handers — signaled the end of the day for the lefty Holton. In came righty Reese Olson, the latest Tiger to make his postseason debut.
It took all of one pitch for Thomas to provide exactly what the Guardians had been searching for when they acquired him at the trade deadline: someone capable of doing damage after Ramirez and Naylor.
A vicious cut from Thomas on a first-pitch slider from Olson sent the ball soaring toward the left-field bleachers, eventually landing a projected 394 feet from home plate. Seemingly in a blink, it was 5-0 Guardians. Damage most certainly done.
Cleveland’s five-run blitz in the first inning tied the MLB record for runs scored to start a postseason game before recording an out, joining last year’s D-backs in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Dodgers. But Arizona’s barrage came on the road in front of a downright stunned — and, in turn, silent — Dodger Stadium. Cleveland’s nearly unprecedented offensive display occurred in front of a packed home crowd of 33,548 eager to explode before the Guardians even picked up a bat.
Ramirez and Naylor delivering big hits has become a common sight for the Cleveland crowd. Thomas, though, is a much fresher face, having been acquired at the deadline from the Nationals in an effort to lengthen a Guardians lineup that had become somewhat top-heavy. Thomas struggled initially with Cleveland, hitting .143/.239/.195 with zero homers across 27 games in August. But an .855 OPS in September boosted his confidence down the stretch, priming him to make an impact for Cleveland once the postseason began.
“I’ve heard this is a great place to play in the postseason,” Thomas said Friday ahead of Game 1. “So I’m excited to play in front of the fans that have been supporting us all year.”
Thomas’ review of the Cleveland crowd after getting to experience it?
“It was electric,” he said on the postgame podium. “I think it was everything I had thought and more. It was really cool, you know, to watch the first four guys take unbelievable at-bats and then come through for them there.”
For Detroit, a pitching strategy that rarely faltered during a remarkable run to the postseason and past the Astros backfired in spectacular fashion Saturday. Holton’s initial struggles would’ve been tough to overcome regardless of who replaced him, but the choice to throw Olson into this specific fire — runners on the corners with nobody out and the crowd volume close to maxing out — was a curious one.
For all that has rightfully been made about the number of Tigers pitchers capable of performing in practically any role, Olson felt like a slightly different case. He hadn’t pitched since Sept. 26, he hadn’t made a relief appearance this season, and he had never entered a game with runners on base as a big leaguer.
Afterward, manager AJ Hinch explained his decision to go to Olson in that spot.
“We told him early in the day that the Lane Thomas at-bat was going to be it,” he said. “And if you look at the next two Lane Thomas at-bats” — Thomas struck out swinging in the second and flew out on the first pitch against Olson in the fifth — “that was a little more what we drew up. I mean, sometimes their guy beats our guy.
“Reese was ready, and no excuses, and we’ve been doing this with virtually our entire roster. When it doesn’t work, you wonder. But we can’t — you know, we can’t fault really anybody other than a good swing on a pitch that changed the game, or separated the game for them, and a punch that we didn’t recover from.”
Olson might have been ready, but so was Thomas: “I had faced him earlier on in the season before I got here. And I thought in that situation that I was either going to get a fastball, kind of in off the plate, or something soft that I could hit in the air and at least score that run from third. So I kind of picked one or the other and got the one I was looking for and put a good swing on it.”
Olson hung a slider right down the middle, Thomas made him pay, and Game 1 felt like a wrap from the get-go.
Afforded a sizable early lead, Guardians starter Tanner Bibee attacked the zone with all of his pitches — including an intriguing new offering in his recently reintroduced sinker — and prevented Detroit from building any semblance of a rally to get back into the game. After throwing just nine sinkers this season (all in his final two starts), Bibee threw the pitch 10 times in Game 1.
He told Yahoo Sports postgame that he decided in recent weeks to bring back the sinker, which he used to throw in college, to give him another weapon to induce weak contact. And that was on display on multiple occasions Saturday: The sinker got Colt Keith to fly out softly to end a tumultuous, 27-pitch first inning and coaxed a ground ball from Spencer Torkelson for a double play in the fourth.
Bibee departed a bit earlier than expected, at just 76 pitches with two outs in the fifth, but with an off day between Games 1 and 2, manager Stephen Vogt had the luxury of being ultra-aggressive with his bullpen, even with a substantial lead. With Kerry Carpenter, Detroit’s most dangerous hitter against right-handed pitching, scheduled to bat with a runner on base, Vogt handed the ball to rookie righty Cade Smith to put an end to the modest threat. Smith — who, as the fWAR leader among all relievers in the regular season, has a sneaky strong case in the AL Rookie of the Year race — struck Carpenter out on three pitches and then added three more punchouts in his postseason debut.
From there, the Guardians coasted. David Fry added two more runs with a double in the bottom of the sixth before Tim Herrin, Hunter Gaddis and Emmanuel Clase recorded the remaining nine outs without much trouble. The 7-0 victory for Cleveland was as commanding and comfortable a win as you’ll see this time of year; layoff or no, it would be difficult to script a better start to this series for the Guardians.
“The way we looked at it was, we’re going to get five days of rest. We get to recover. We get to turn off for a few days,” Vogt said postgame. “And we worked them hard. To the players’ credit, they put a ton of effort into our workouts. They got competitive with each other in some simulated games, and it showed. We came out ready to swing the bat, and we looked like we didn’t take five days off.”
For now, Detroit can take solace in knowing it gets to hand the ball to ace lefty Tarik Skubal on Monday for Game 2. Facing Skubal will be an undeniable challenge for Cleveland — and an opportunity to utilize the momentum from a resounding Game 1 victory to help level the playing field against such a difficult opponent on the mound. For the 27-year-old lefty, the stage will be set for him to play hero yet again and try to recapture some good vibes for a Tigers team that needs a stronger collective effort if it’s going to tilt this series back in its favor.
