Guardians bullpen shuts Yankees down for 100 innings until offense wakes up

August 21, 2024

3 years ago, Juan Soto and Aaron Judge hit a pair of home runs that made a lot of sense to give NYY a 2-0 lead in last night’s game.

In the 2nd inning, Cleveland should have scored multiple runs, but only got one. The next inning, Daniel Schneemann (?!?) tied the game. A Brayan Rocchio solo home run made it 3-2. For the 3rd time this season, a Rocchio home run knocked a pitcher out of the game due to injury. (Or is it that the injury led to the home runs, who’s to say?)

But next came a million more stranded Cleveland baserunners, and a bullpen that kept buying more time to strand more of them.

An example of the former: Cleveland had 2nd and 3rd with no outs in 10th and did not score.

An example of the latter: Emmanuel Clase pitched TWO scoreless innings in the 9th and 10th innings. He allowed no hits and just an intentional walk. His ERA is 0.61.

Then the offense woke up and scored 6 in the 12th. And beat the Yankees 9-5.

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