The Cleveland Guardians lost Game 1 of the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees 5-2, amid severe control blips by some of their pitchers that ended up being costly.
Alex Cobb, the Guardians starter, solved the first couple of innings but encountered problems in the third.
Facing Juan Soto for the second time, the All-Star outfielder broke a scoreless tie with a long home run that put the Yankees on top.
At one point in the game, Cobb was visited by the trainer and looked like he had some issues with his problematic fingernail.
He stayed in the game and got a couple of outs, but loaded the bases.
There, instead of calling one of his best relievers – Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis, or Andrew Walters, for example, or even Erik Sabrowski, Pedro Avila or someone more used to enter a game with people on base – he went with a rookie starter with known control issues, Joey Cantillo.
Logic indicates that it would have been better to bring in Cantillo to start an inning instead of cleaning up a mess, but that was Stephen Vogt’s decision.
Cantillo looked nervous and threw not one, but two run-scoring wild pitches as the Yankees jumped to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the third.
Plenty of inflection points tonight & the obvious question will be the thought process in putting Cantillo in over an Avila or Sabrowski to finish that 3rd inning.
Giving Cantillo a clean inning to start is the hindsight answer, but interested to hear Vogt’s reasoning there
— Jensen Lewis (@JLEWFifty) October 15, 2024
Aaron Judge added a fourth run in the fourth frame with a sac fly.
The Guardians offense never posed a threat to Yankees starter Carlos Rodon, who dominated through six innings, striking out nine and accumulating an incredible 25 swings and misses.
The only blemish in Rodon’s outing was a solo homer by Brayan Rocchio in the top of the sixth.
An absolute missile by Giancarlo Stanton added a fifth run for the Yankees, and even though Steven Kwan plated Andres Gimenez with a single in the top of the eighth, it wasn’t enough to get close as Luke Weaver slammed the door shut wit a five-out save.
It’s fair to say the Guards shot themselves in the foot with seven walks and five wild pitches.
Cleveland will try to steal home-field advantage again on Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium.
NEXT: Guardians Manager Said Leaving Right-Hander Off ALCS Roster Was A 'Tough Decision'
