Noel, Fry power Guardians' miraculous walk-off win for the ages

CLEVELAND -- David Fry sat at the podium in the interview room at Progressive Field in a soaking wet jersey after having a cooler of ice water dumped on him on the field. He still couldn’t process what had happened because of the way his team pulled off an improbable comeback. When he was asked how it happened, he collected himself enough to summarize it so succinctly: Bunts, bombs and chaos.

The Guardians were on the verge of having their backs completely against the wall. They were one out away from facing elimination when Jhonkensy Noel smacked a game-tying two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to force extra innings, setting the stage for Fry to be the second hero of the night with a walk-off blast to hand the Guardians a 7-5 win over the Yankees in 10 innings in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series on Thursday. New York now leads the series, 2-1.

“At that point I blacked out,” Fry said. “I remember being like halfway down the first-base line looking back at the dugout and looking and saying, ‘All right, I just have to make sure I touch all four bases and get home and celebrate.’”

Cleveland knew what was at stake. If it had fallen into a 3-0 deficit in the best-of-seven matchup, the odds would’ve been dramatically against them. Only one team (the 2004 Red Sox) of the 40 who have faced that situation in a seven-game series in postseason history had advanced to the World Series. Now, the Guardians are still considered the underdog, but momentum has turned at least slightly in their favor.

In all best-of-seven postseason series, teams leading 2-1 after three games have gone on to win the series 106 of 151 times (70%). Under the current 2-3-2 format, teams that have won Game 3 at home after losing the first two on the road have come back to win 10 of 36 times (28%).

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No matter what the narrative was about this team externally after dropping the first two games of the series in New York, the Guardians’ clubhouse remained even-keeled. Everyone in the room knew that they just needed to get back to their typical “Guards Ball” style of play in order to get back in the win column. And that’s exactly what they did on Thursday.

Offensively, they stole bases, manufactured runs and racked up more walks than strikeouts. When it came to their pitching, they got their first five-inning start of the postseason from Matthew Boyd. It finally allowed Cleveland to line up the rest of the game for their lights-out “Big Four” relievers: Cade Smith, Tim Herrin, Hunter Gaddis and Emmanuel Clase.

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It’s the script that led the Guardians to an AL Central title, and they know it has to be the script to get them to the World Series. But sometimes, there are hiccups along the way, and Clase had a big one in Game 3, uncharacteristically giving up back-to-back homers to Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton in the eighth inning to blow the lead.

It was a gut punch this team shouldn’t have been able to overcome. It had followed the necessary steps to win the game, and those steps failed. But Cleveland did what it does best: Ignore what the external narrative is supposed to be and refuse to quit.

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“That was an incredible game on both sides. All the emotions, ups and downs, back and forth, you name it. If there's an emotion, we all felt it on both sides,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “I couldn't be more proud of our guys. That's exactly who we are. We never quit. We get punched in the teeth pretty hard there in the eighth, and our guys stepped up huge for the guy that carried us all year long.”

Vogt called on Noel to pinch-hit for Daniel Schneemann with two outs and a runner on in the ninth. The third pitch he saw from Yankees reliever Luke Weaver was demolished into the left-field stands -- a textbook no-doubter that allowed Noel to flip his bat with confidence, knowing he just sent this game to extra innings.

Progressive Field erupted. The stands were shaking. And just one inning later, after Brayan Rocchio had bunted a runner into scoring position for Fry, he reminded everyone why he was an All-Star by smacking the walk-off blast into the left-field bleachers, which marked the third walk-off homer in franchise postseason history.

“David Fry, the guy is built different,” Guardians catcher Austin Hedges said. “He's got ice water in his veins, and once again, no moment's too big for him. And I mean, there was no doubt in my mind he was going to walk it off with a hit, but he took that sinker deep. I think he even surprised me on that one.”

If the Guardians needed a reminder that sticking with “Guards Ball” will lead to success, they got it.

“Bunts, bombs and chaos,” Fry reiterated. “That's what we talked about [coming into the game]. It felt like tonight we got back to that.”