The Cleveland Guardians walked off the Detroit Tigers twice on Friday to move within 2.5 games of the Chicago White Sox. Brayan Rocchio won Game 1 with a homer and Travis Bazzana’s single completed the sweep; Cleveland is now well-positioned to gun for a sweep with Parker Messick and Gavin Williams taking the mound on Saturday and Sunday.
Manager Stephen Vogt isn’t going to win Manager of the Year for a third year in a row, but he has still done an outstanding job guiding this team through a season that has been a bit of a roller coaster. The Guardians wouldn’t be in the thick of the playoff race again without him and they’re going to need him down the stretch, so hopefully he got all the anger out of his system on Friday.
So much happened on Friday that it was easy to forget that Vogt was actually ejected in Game 2 of the doubleheader. Mason Horodyski of WEWS pointed out that the ejection was just the third of his career.
“Stephen Vogt was just ejected from tonight’s game. 3rd time in his career that’s happened,” said Horodyski.
Stephen Vogt was just ejected from tonight’s game. 3rd time in his career that’s happened#Guardians
— Mason Horodyski (@MasonHorodyski) September 5, 2026
Vogt got ejected after coming out of the dugout to defend his catcher, Austin Hedges, who received an automatic strike call during his at-bat due to a pitch clock violation. Vogt disagreed with the call and let home-plate umpire Manny Gonzalez hear it.
At least Vogt got a little time off at the end of a long day. The ejection also helped light a fire under his team because Cleveland was down 3-0 and wound up winning 4-3 in the tenth inning, so perhaps Vogt should get ejected more often.
It was nice to see Vogt have Hedges’ back and kind of fun to see him snap for once. This likely doesn’t become a regular occurrence, so hopefully Guardians fans enjoyed it while it lasted.
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