Giménez the last of several heroes as Guardians walk off Yankees

CLEVELAND -- If you needed a good way to describe what the Guardians’ season has been like, you couldn’t find a better example than Sunday’s come-from-behind victory.

The stats tell you the Guardians shouldn’t have beaten the Yankees, 8-7, in the bottom of the 10th at Progressive Field. Baseball Savant gave Cleveland just a 21% chance to win with one out in the frame -- three batters before Andrés Giménez served the walk-off sacrifice fly to right field.

But the Guardians have become used to overcoming the odds this season. We were expecting a similar offensive output to last year, when Cleveland averaged 4.1 runs per game, after the team made few moves to improve the roster. Instead, it has averaged 5.4 runs per game so far. We’ve been taught to believe that the rotation has to be the strongest asset of this organization, but so far, injuries and hiccups have caused problems. And still, the Guardians have 10 wins in their first 15 games.

Sunday gave us a good look at how this has happened.

Florial sticking to the process
Maybe all Estevan Florial needed was his former team to come to town.

Florial has had a lot of pressure on him this year. One of the only moves the Guardians made over the offseason to try to improve this offense was to trade Cody Morris to the Yankees for Florial. Since the start of Spring Training, he has struggled to get his bat going.

That was until the Yankees came to Northeast Ohio. Florial showed signs of life on Saturday, hitting a homer during the doubleheader against his former club, but he solidified it Sunday by breaking the 4-4 tie in the bottom of the eighth with a pinch-hit solo homer. It marked Cleveland’s first go-ahead pinch-hit homer in the eighth inning or later since Jason Giambi did so on Sept. 24, 2013, against the White Sox.

“That’s such a special moment for Flo,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said.

Florial has been working to find the offensive answer. Over the past few days, he has stuck to a plan that so far has reaped more benefits than he has seen all year. Now, the Guardians can hope it sticks.

“It’s a big reason why he’s with us, is the quality of his at-bats. He’s got some power and the ability to impact the ball,” Vogt said. “Winning the day doesn’t necessarily mean you got three hits. It’s, ‘Did you have three to four quality at-bats?’ Because when you continue to have consistent quality at-bats, the results will come.”

Athleticism is key
The focus may be on the Guardians fighting back from a two-run deficit in the 10th inning by leaning on their scrappy nature and forcing three runs across the plate on a forceout, fielder’s choice and sacrifice fly. But without the 3-2-3 double play in the top half of the frame, that doesn’t happen.

With one out and runners on second and third, Alex Verdugo hit a ground ball to David Fry at first base. Fry fielded and fired home to Bo Naylor, who not only applied the tag to the runner trying to score but turned and fired back to first base to end the inning with the double play.

“That’s a super-tough play for Bo,” Fry said. “Being able to play catcher, I know that’s not the first thing on your mind. Your first thing is, ‘I got to get this out right here.’ But for him to have the presence of mind to whip around and get the double play was huge.”

“That’s two unbelievably athletic, heads-up people making a play,” Vogt said. “I mean, the amount of athleticism and baseball IQ in that play probably won’t get talked about enough. That should be No. 1 on SportsCenter, MLB, whatever the top plays are, that should be the top play today.”

Their resilience is back and it’s stronger than ever
We can try to compare this team to the 2022 American League Central champions as much as we want. We won’t know for sure what all the similarities and differences will be until ‘24 comes to a close. What we do know is that the resilience the team had and relied on two years ago is back, and it might be stronger than before.

“This whole homestand, we fought back,” Vogt said. “We’re not going to quit. That’s one of the things I heard the boys yelling on the way back up to the clubhouse, ‘We don’t quit! We don’t quit!’ And that’s what this group is about.”