The Cleveland Guardians move on to New York after marathon game with the Tampa Bay Rays

After 15 long innings, The Cleveland Guardians sweep the Tampa Bay Rays to move on to the next round of the playoffs.

The Tampa Bay Rays wanted to force a game three against the Cleveland Guardians, and they nearly did just that, forcing the Guards into 15 innings on Game 2, nearly playing an entire second game. The Guardians have won their first playoff series since they went to the World Series in 2016 and to quote Jim Ross, “Bah Gawd, it was a slobber knocker”. Well, if you liked pitching it was. The Guardians and Rays combined for 39 combined strikeouts, with the Rays striking out just one more than the Guardians.

The game fell just short of five hours and was the longest scoreless game in postseason history.

To say the clubs relied on pitching over the two-game series would be an understatement. The Guards won game one 2-1 thanks to a Jose Ramirez home run in the 6th and the Guardians won in the 15th on Saturday with a walk-off homerun from Oscar Gonzalez.

For a team that wasn’t known for hitting home runs in the regular season, they’ve now scored all three of their runs in the postseason off home runs. While every Guards pitcher did well, Triston McKenzie and Sam Hentges really delivered in Game 2 against the Rays, racking up eight and six strikeouts respectively.

The only negative on the day is that the Rays losing pitcher is none other than Guardians legend Corey Kluber, who pitched great for 1.1. innings of play. It was that .1 inning after that cost him, giving up the homerun ball to Gonzalez that sent the Rays home and the Guardians on to the Yankees.

The New York Yankees are next for the Cleveland Guardians

Beating Kluber was hard emotionally, but beating the Yankees will be hard physically. They’re rotation isn’t on the level of the Guardians, but Aaron Judge is having a season to remember. He broke the AL record for home runs in a season and many few him as the true home run king due to the tainted legacy of Barry Bonds.

Judge is a monster of a hitter but injuries and consistency issues have plagued the Yankees all year, they are beatable. The Yankees live and die on the long ball and strike out a lot. They have three good starting pitchers, but nothing the Guardians haven’t faced before.

The Yankees series will start in New York and will be a five-game series, with the first two in New York, the third and fourth (if needed) will be in Cleveland with any potential game five ending up in New York. That series starts on Tuesday, so the Guards have two games off to rest.