The Cleveland Guardians won 8-6 on Wednesday afternoon against the Washington Nationals in D.C.
The win itself was impressive, yes, but the way that players were able to respond to adversity to overcome a significant deficit is the mark of a truly elite team.
Cleveland was down 3-0 as the squads headed to the sixth inning.
They weren’t able to inflict any damage on starter Mike Soroka through five innings.
They broke through in that sixth frame, though.
The Guardians scored all eight runs in that inning, as they sent a remarkable 13 men to the plate.
Not even three late runs were enough for the Nats to catch up to the Guardians, who went 14-8 in a brutal 22-game stretch played in just 23 days.
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt summed it up best when talking about his team’s ability to keep the party going when the other team is crumbling.
“I think it’s just when we smell blood, we go, and our guys really feed off each other,” he said, per MLB.com. “When you put pressure on the other team’s pitcher and you constantly have baserunners, they know that they’re going to run. So when we get on base, we make really good things happen. That’s all we try to do.
“We try to get on base and then keep the line moving.”
Boy, did the Guardians smell blood this time.
They got six hits, three walks, and one hit-by-pitch in the sixth frame alone.
They didn’t even need to homer: they just got hot at the right time, and they earned a victory because of that.
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