Guards-Yanks an intriguing battle of contrasts

There are no uninteresting Division Series this week in baseball, not a single one, just look at the board. But there is no more interesting one about to begin this week than Yankees vs. Guardians, as Terry Francona’s kids come into Yankee Stadium like they’re trying to take over the principal’s office.

Everybody knows that the Yankees haven’t won the World Series in 13 years, which feel more like 113 to Yankee fans. The Yankees are the first to tell you how much they want to get back to the Canyon of Heroes, as if it’s once again World Series or bust for them. But to get there, they have to get past the Guardians first. We’re already seeing how important pitching is at this time of year. And we just saw how the Guardians pitched against the Rays.

• Postseason ticket information: Guardians | Yankees

This is a very fair fight no one could have seen coming three months ago. When the Yankees were 64-28 at the All-Star break, they were 17 games better than the Guardians. But since then, the Guardians have been 10 games better in the standings than the Yankees. And yet here they are, even though New York hit twice as many home runs as Cleveland did this season. As a team, the Guardians only hit 65 more home runs than Aaron’s Judge’s 62.

But the Guardians didn’t slug their way here. They pitched their way here. They’re coming off an American League Wild Card Series that saw them give the Rays exactly one run in 24 innings, coming that close to shutting them out twice with all the big arms that Francona sent after them, until Oscar Gonzalez, another one of his kids, hit the bottom-of-the-15th home run that ended Game 2. It's pitching like this that gives baseball’s youngest team this kind of shot at the most famous sports franchise in this world.

When it was over on Saturday and the Guardians had finally beaten the Rays, 1-0, somebody asked Francona, one of the great managers of all-time, what his plans were for the next day.

“I just know we’re going to New York,” he said.

• Guardians-Yankees Game 1 FAQ (Tuesday, TBS)

He has been there before. Once, 18 years ago, as his Red Sox were on their way to winning the team’s first World Series since 1918, he and the ’04 Red Sox made a famous trip to New York for the end of that season’s AL Championship Series. They had been down, three games to none, but then won the next two games at Fenway Park, and then went to New York and to the old Stadium and finished off the greatest comeback in baseball history.

Francona finally left Boston and ended up in Cleveland, and since he got there, the Yankees have beaten his team twice in the postseason, once in the ‘17 Division Series after Cleveland had the Yankees down, two games to none. Now he is back with a team that ran away with its division in September, finishing up with a record of 46-26 after the break. The Yankees were 35-35 after the break, even though they did pick things up after stumbling and bumbling through August.

Now they get a Guardians club that does have those big young arms in their rotation, starting with Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie, and a tremendous closer in Emmanuel Clase, and José Ramírez, the star hitter in the middle of Francona’s batting order -- even if Ramírez did lead the Guardians with 33 fewer home runs than Judge.

“We're confident in ourselves, we're confident in each other, we continue to pull for each other, and everybody continues to kind of just count us out,” Bieber said the other day. “But when you're playing with house money, there’s something special about it.”

Bieber, Cleveland’s ace, won’t start until Game 2. But even though the Yankees finally decided to go with their ace, Gerrit Cole, in Game 1, it is not as if that gives the Yankees some big edge. Quite the contrary. Cole was 13-8 this season for the Yankees, with an earned run average of 3.50. Cal Quantrill, Cleveland’s Game 1 starter, won more games than Cole did, with a record of 15-5, and had a lower ERA than Cole had, Quantrill clocking in at 3.38.

Whatever the comparative numbers say, however, and even with the way Bieber and McKenzie looked last weekend against the Rays, the Yankees go into this postseason feeling as good about their starters as they have in years. There was briefly the thought that Aaron Boone might start Nestor Cortes in Game 1. And Luis Severino, who has battled injuries the past few years, pitched seven no-hit innings against the Rangers the last week of the regular season.

"[Starting pitching] is one of the areas of our club that I’m really excited about heading into the postseason,” Boone said. “We can go match up with other teams’ pitchers.”

The Yankees are the favorites going into this Division Series, absolutely. There’s been so much talk all year about a potential showdown in October between the Yankees and Astros, what would be the third time they’ve gone up against each other in the ALCS since 2017. The Yankees have to get past the hot kids from Cleveland first.