Why not walk him? Guardians pay for choice to face Stanton ... twice

CLEVELAND -- The intentional walk is lame. It’s a cop-out. It’s not a strategy; it’s an abandonment of the obligation to entertain.

For generations, people have railed against the intentional walk. In MLB’s early days, there was talk of trying to ban it, and that may have happened if there were an easy way to accurately distinguish intent from ineptitude. Deadball Era Hall of Famer Clark Griffith once said, “The pitcher who is afraid of any batter ought to quit the business.”

But sometimes surrender is the only answer.

The Guardians, to their own peril, ignored that answer when it came to Giancarlo Stanton.

The Yankees' DH is on one. Stanton smacked a momentum-shifting homer in the sixth inning of Game 5 of the ALCS on Saturday night at Progressive Field, helping the Yankees to a 5-2 win in 10 frames that punched their ticket to the World Series. Stanton has now hit three game-tying or go-ahead homers in the sixth frame or later this postseason. He is burnishing a sneaky-good Hall of Fame case. He was the MVP of this series because of the role his four homers against the Guards played in the Yankees clinching their first AL pennant since 2009.

But it didn’t have to be this way. The Guardians could have been beaten by somebody else or -- dare I suggest -- not been beaten at all in Games 4 and 5.

For Stephen Vogt’s managerial style to be so hands-on -- perhaps overly so -- in so many aspects of this postseason and so lax when it came to Stanton was baffling.

On back-to-back nights, Stanton stepped to the plate in the sixth inning of a tight tilt with first base open. On back-to-back nights, Vogt did not throw up four fingers to indicate an intentional walk. And on back-to-back nights, Stanton threatened to decapitate someone in the Progressive Field bleachers with a monster blast.

That old adage that “a walk is as good as a hit” does not apply to Stanton, because all his hits are homers. Like, literally, he has eight career postseason hits against Cleveland, and every single one of them is a home run. Per the Elias Sports Bureau, that’s the most consecutive hits resulting in home runs against one postseason opponent (the next is Cleveland’s Jim Thome, with five straight postseason homers against the Red Sox between 1995-99).

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So … why not walk him?

In Friday’s Game 4, the Yankees had a 3-2 lead and runners at second and third with one out, Stanton at the plate and Anthony Rizzo on deck. Cleveland’s at-the-time indomitable reliever, Cade Smith, was on the hill.

Now, Rizzo is a gifted hitter and another guy who has tortured Cleveland in October. But he’s also playing with two fractured fingers. So while he can still slap a single with the best of them -- and he did notch a double in Game 2 -- he’s nowhere near the power threat that Stanton is.

So did Vogt think about walking Stanton there?

“No, I didn't,” Vogt said postgame.

Well, look, obviously Vogt thought about it. He is aware that the intentional walk is available -- I’m sure of that. Vogt just didn’t think hard on it, as he explained: “We got Cade on the mound. He's the best strikeout reliever we have, and in that situation, I trust Cade to make pitches there. He's been doing it all year.”

That Smith betrayed Vogt’s trust in this particular situation is beside the point, because there’s absolutely no faulting what that rookie reliever has meant to this club. But walking Stanton would have introduced the possibility of a double play. And if Vogt was favoring a right-on-right matchup with Stanton over a right-on-left matchup with Rizzo, that doesn’t make sense either, because Smith has held lefties to a minuscule .431 OPS this year (regular season and postseason). In fact, when Vogt brought Smith into Game 5 on Saturday, he did so with two lefties coming up to bat.

Anyway, Stanton hit a 404-foot, 105.7-mph fly ball and made it 6-3. Vogt then summoned lefty Tim Herrin.

And Rizzo struck out.

I live in Cleveland, and let me tell you: The non-intentional walk to Stanton was all anybody was talking about prior to Game 5. I heard about it from my wife, who was in the stands with our three kids (I don’t think my 6- and 4-year-olds cared about pitching to Stanton, but my 9-year-old hated it). I heard about it at my daughter’s volleyball game. I heard about it from Guardians people. I’m pretty sure it was even mentioned by Ozzy Osbourne on stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions next door at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse (that last one might be an exaggeration).

Surely, 24 hours later, if put in a similar position, Vogt would think a little harder about the intentional walk, right?

Well, baseball being baseball, it came up again.

It was again the sixth, but this time it was 2-0, Guardians. It was Tanner Bibee -- the first Guardians starter entrusted to start the sixth inning this postseason -- on the mound. Aaron Judge had just been erased by a double play, leaving a runner at third and two out. Up to bat was Stanton. On deck was Jazz Chisholm Jr., who entered this game batting .111 in the series. Chisholm had been hit by a pitch (maybe) in the first and grounded out in the fourth in his first two at-bats.

Giancarlo Stanton he is not.

Here we were again. You were thinking it. I was thinking it. Ozzy was thinking it.

It was time to walk Stanton.

Nope. It was time for Bibee to miss his spot, with catcher Bo Naylor set up way outside, by throwing an 82.6-mph slider over the middle and watching Stanton hit it 117.5 mph and 446 feet to left field.

And then Smith came back out and struck out Chisholm.

Because the situation had come up again with the same result, Vogt was posed the question again … and he gave the same answer:

“Tanner was dialed,” Vogt said. “Tanner had struck him out twice. He had him on the ropes. One mistake, that right there. I trust Tanner on him. The way he was throwing the ball, I would not -- you give me 100 more times, I'm not putting him on right there.”

With the way Stanton is locked in right now, the Guardians might lose this game 100 more times. Vogt should have learned from Game 4.

Again, the intentional walk is uncompetitive and often dangerous in its own right. It is not baseball at its best. But sometimes, it’s the only way. And right now, it looks like the only way to stop Stanton in a big spot.

Unfortunately, now it’s up to another team to figure that out, because the Guards -- a flawed but fun team that had an earnest chance to take down the superstar-laden Yankees -- are as gone as a Stanton deep fly.