CLEVELAND — It was supposed to land in the dirt. Instead, it landed in the seats 423 feet from home plate.
Emmanuel Clase didn’t have his cape for Game 2. He didn’t have his typical command, either.
Those days when the superheroes lose their superpowers are a bit unsettling for the rest of us to watch. Clase giving up any home run is a record-scratch moment. Giving up a three-run homer to Detroit’s Kerry Carpenter in the ninth inning of a scoreless game feels like longer odds than the Tigers faced in getting here.
GO DEEPER
Tigers pierce stellar Guardians bullpen to tie up ALDS: Takeaways
Clase allowed five earned runs all season.
He gave up three on one pitch in the ninth on Monday.
This has been one of the most dominant seasons for any reliever in the history of the game. But if there was ever a debate over who deserves the American League Cy Young award this year (there’s not), Tarik Skubal’s blaring, chest-thumping performance to beat the Guardians on the road in Game 2 should settle it.
KERRY CARPENTER MOONSHOT#Postseason pic.twitter.com/NIr8Vp9Qi8
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) October 7, 2024
Skubal led the American League in wins, ERA and strikeouts. Then he shouted, stomped and shoved the Tigers back into this series with seven brilliant shutout innings in Detroit’s 3-0 win.
Cleveland needed Clase to get four outs over the eighth and ninth innings. He got three.
Skubal hasn’t allowed a run in 13 postseason innings over two starts. He is far and away the best starter in the American League, and if the Guardians don’t win both of their games in Detroit this week to end this series, The Reaper awaits them again in a potential closeout game here next weekend.
Tarik Skubal wants the smoke 😤 #ALDS pic.twitter.com/xt9t1sToag
— MLB (@MLB) October 7, 2024
Clase has been a type of dominant we’ve rarely seen by a reliever and he’s done it by increasing his cutter usage. He can pitch two or even three days in a row because he seeks efficiency over strikeouts. It keeps his pitch counts low and his arm fresh despite so many appearances.
When he’s right, it’s incredibly difficult to put his cutter in play with any real chance of success. While he was typically around a 2-to-1 cutter-to-slider ratio the last couple of years, he increased it this year to around 4-to-1.
All of which makes it more surprising that he threw Carpenter three consecutive sliders in the ninth inning. The last one landed in the seats in right field.
Clase’s cutter is so good he doesn’t have much need for anything else. But his command Monday night was off with both pitches. He hadn’t allowed a home run off a slider since 2022, back in the Stone Age when baseball didn’t have a pitch clock. He said he was trying to throw the last one in the dirt to get Carpenter to chase. It worked a few batters earlier when Spencer Torkelson chased Clase’s slider in the dirt for strike three. This time, not only did Clase miss the dirt, he threw it over the middle of the plate against one of the few Tigers hitters capable of really punishing mistakes.
“He can change the scoreboard,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “He can change the game. He does it time after time.”
Prior to Carpenter’s homer, Jake Rogers singled on a cutter that Clase also left over the plate and the pitch before the home run to Carpenter caught even more of the plate; Carpenter just missed it.
“I missed some pitches,” Clase said through an interpreter.
Getting Skubal out of a tie game — albeit scoreless — felt like a small victory and a game the Guardians should win. Once it becomes a bullpen game, the Guardians will always have the advantage. The fact it didn’t work this time sets up two big games in Detroit.
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt followed the same plan in Games 1 and 2. It’s not likely to change for Games 3 and 4. He squeezed out 4 2/3 terrific shutout innings from Matthew Boyd on Monday — the same number of outs Tanner Bibee recorded in Game 1 — before unleashing Cade Smith, Tim Herrin, Hunter Gaddis and Clase.
Getting to the bullpen as fast as possible remains Cleveland’s best path to postseason success. It just didn’t work this time.
“He’s been nearly perfect,” Vogt said of Clase. “He’s human, too.”
Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox.
Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox.
Sign Up
(Photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images)
