Big Christmas' huge Game 3 homer a present for dad

CLEVELAND -- Heading into October, Jhonkensy Noel was excited that his dad, Rafael, was going to make his first trip to the United States to be able to watch him play in person.

Noel joked that he doesn’t always like to talk to his dad about baseball. "He’ll say things like, ‘Why’d you leave that pitch middle-middle?'” Noel said, laughing, “Sometimes I tell him, ‘Hey, go hit yourself.’”

But this was going to be special. This was going to be the first time Rafael met Big Christmas, the MLB version of his son that all of Cleveland has gotten to know this season. The man that created tremendous excitement by hitting a homer in his first big league at-bat.

Rafael had gotten a taste of what it’s like to see his son as a big leaguer during the first seven playoff games. But nothing was like Thursday's Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, when Noel demolished a game-tying two-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning to help the Guardians to a 7-5 victory over the Yankees at Progressive Field. The Guardians trail 2-1 in the best-of-seven ALCS.

It’s the moment little Jhonkensy dreamed of when he was playing in his yard back in the Dominican Republic, the last time Rafael would’ve seen him on the diamond in person. It’s one thing to dream about it, though. It’s another thing to live it.

Noel had been struggling for the past six weeks, with the slugger's last home run coming on Aug. 30. After that, he went a mere 6-for-53 (.113 average) with a .364 OPS in his final 22 games of the regular season.

“No player has a good 162 games in a row,” Noel said through interpreter Agustin Rivero, “so you've got to grind it and make sure sometime it's going to get better for you.”

The thing with boom-or-bust hitters is that the boom can happen in the middle of any cold stretch. It just takes one swing. The threat of that on the bench was more than enough for the Guardians to carry him on the ALDS and ALCS rosters, and Rafael was cheering in the stands all during the first few games in October, beaming with pride while he saw his son on a big league field.

Yet the results still weren’t coming. Noel was hitless in his first five games. He finally picked up a double against the Yankees in Game 1 on Monday, but it didn’t impact the result of the game. It had been the same story for Noel in the postseason as it was in the final month of the regular season: underwhelming production. Sure, it was still cool for Rafael to experience something that few parents will ever get to live through, but he still hadn’t met Big Christmas.

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This is the nickname that manager Stephen Vogt gave Noel upon his arrival to the Majors. It’s pretty simple, really. It’s a big dude with a last name that means Christmas. And it’s a name that Noel loves. He gets so giddy when fans are chanting it, even though he’s humble and doesn’t need to be in the spotlight. But when you can swing the bat the way he does, the spotlight eventually finds you.

Noel had sat on the bench for the first eight innings of Thursday’s contest. As always, he did his work in the batting cages to stay ready for a pinch-hit opportunity at any moment. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the Guardians trailing by two, he was sent to the plate to face Yankees reliever Luke Weaver with a runner on base.

“We're all thinking it, you know?” Guardians catcher Austin Hedges said. “He comes in to pinch-hit, and it's like, ‘Here we go, big boy.’”

“I mean, he pinch-hit to hit a homer,” Vogt said. “That's why we sent him up there.”

The second pitch he saw, a changeup over the heart of the plate, was sent a Statcast-projected 404 feet into the left-field seats. Noel slammed his bat into the ground and trotted around the bases. Progressive Field erupted in a way that caused the upper levels of the park to shake.

And somewhere in the stands was Rafael, who got to witness more than 32,000 fans celebrating a moment that he watched his son dream of as a child.

“I haven't talked to him, but I'm pretty sure he really enjoyed that,” Noel said with a big grin.

When Noel does talk to him, it seems safe to assume his dad won’t be questioning his swing decision this time.