Clase rebounds in Game 5, but bullpen's workload catches up

CLEVELAND – A few hours before Saturday’s win-or-go-home Game 5 of the American League Championship Series against the Yankees, Guardians manager Stephen Vogt expressed his unwavering support for Emmanuel Clase.

“Emmanuel will be right back out there in the ninth tonight,” Vogt said. “Because he's our guy.”

In the span of two days, Clase had gone from baseball’s most dominant reliever to embattled closer after unraveling over back-to-back outings in Games 3 and 4. Those struggles sparked speculation as to whether Vogt might stick with him going forward if the Guardians encountered another high-leverage situation in the ninth.

Sure enough, the Guardians and the Yankees were tied heading into the late innings on Saturday night. Once Clase began warming up in the bottom of the eighth, it didn’t take long for everyone inside Progressive Field to realize he was in line to face the heart of New York’s lineup – Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Jazz Chisholm Jr. – which two days earlier sent shockwaves through this very stadium when Judge and Stanton overcame a two-run deficit by taking the All-Star closer deep for back-to-back homers in Game 3.

The bullpen door swung open for the top of the ninth. Clase made his usual slow walk onto the warning track before jogging to the mound accompanied by Lil Wayne’s “Fireman” blaring over the speakers.

This time, the real Emmanuel Clase was back.

Though Cleveland was ultimately eliminated from the postseason in a 5-2 loss to the Yankees in 10 innings on Saturday, it was Clase’s return to form when they needed him most that helped send Game 5 to extras. The right-hander rebounded by retiring Judge on a flyout, blowing a 100.6 mph fastball by Stanton for a swinging strikeout and retiring Oswaldo Cabrera on a groundout after Chisholm’s two-out single.

After the Yankees pounced on his slider in each of the previous two games, Clase went back to leaning heavily on his cutter – widely regarded as one of the most devastating pitches in the game. Of his 12 pitches, 11 were cutters that averaged an even 100 mph, maxed out at 100.7 mph and were dotted in the spots he wanted them. Walking back to the dugout upon recording the final out of the ninth, Clase looked to the skies and punched his glove with his right fist with a look of relief on his face.

“He responded the way I thought he would,” Vogt said. “This is the best closer on the planet. I’ll stand by that. The year he had. Who he is, you’re not letting anyone else take the ninth inning.”

Considering that Hunter Gaddis served up a go-ahead three-run homer to Juan Soto the next inning, the natural question came Vogt’s way postgame: After a dominant and economical ninth inning, was there any thought to letting Clase go back out for the 10th?

“You want to take him back out there,” Vogt said. “But he had thrown 60 pitches over the last three days. Had we won tonight, we had two more games to go, and you can’t overextend these guys and have them throw 75 or 80 pitches in three days. That’s not right.”

It would be hard to second-guess the decision to give Gaddis the 10th. After all, the right-hander was flawless in his eighth-inning appearance during a tied-up Game 4, tossing a perfect frame with three strikeouts before Clase allowed two runs in the ninth.

Gaddis was also hurt by his defense in Game 5. Facing Alex Verdugo with one out and a runner on, Gaddis induced what had the appearance of a potential inning-ending double-play ball that went awry when shortstop Brayan Rocchio couldn’t catch a throw at second base from Andrés Giménez, which allowed everyone to be safe. Had Rocchio caught the ball to record at least one out, Gaddis could have been out of the inning without having to face Soto. He struck out Gleyber Torres for the second out one batter before Soto came up and delivered the decisive blow.

“I was looking for a way to help the bullpen by getting two outs any way possible,” Rocchio said in Spanish. “In that moment, it’s more important to get two outs rather than one. … Unfortunately, I was not able to catch the ball.”

When a team is teetering on the brink of elimination from the postseason, the mentality becomes that if you are going to go out, you had better go down utilizing your strengths. For better or for worse, these Guardians rode their dominant bullpen led by “The Big Four” – Cade Smith, Tim Herrin, Gaddis and Clase -- that ended the regular season with the fourth-best bullpen ERA (2.57) of any team since 1995 until the wheels fell off.

Through 10 postseason games, that quartet of relievers combined for 29 appearances with 42 strikeouts and 13 walks in 33 2/3 innings. The fatigue, however, was evident as October went on; six of the seven homers allowed by Cleveland’s bullpen this postseason came in the ALCS.

As a whole, Cleveland’s bullpen paced this deep playoff run by combining to throw 53 2/3 innings with a 3.52 ERA, while starting pitchers combined for 33 2/3 innings and a 3.82 ERA.

“What they did individually to step up and take the ball for this team for what seemed like every single day, they carried us here,” Vogt said. “If it wasn’t for that group of guys in the bullpen, we wouldn’t have gotten this far into this season. They deserve a ton of credit.”