Ramírez shows off his 'clutch gene' with walk-off winner

CLEVELAND -- José Ramírez rounded second just in time to watch the winning run cross the plate. He launched his helmet into outer space, as the Guardians' dugout emptied like animals that had been caged for months.

Josh Naylor and Triston McKenzie grabbed buckets of bubblegum. McKenzie chucked his container in the air. Naylor emptied his and put it on Ramírez’s head, leaving the All-Star third baseman standing in the middle of Progressive Field with an enormous grin on his face and a bucket crown surrounded by a group of men celebrating like children on the playground.

It was a familiar scene. One we saw countless times last year.

To say the Guardians needed this moment would be quite the understatement. The team was on the verge of dropping its fourth consecutive series after leaving the bases loaded with one out in the eighth. Instead, Ramírez was the hero, serving a walk-off two-run double in the right-center-field gap to lift Cleveland to a 4-3 victory over St. Louis on Sunday afternoon.

“I had a sense that something was gonna happen, especially when he came up,” Guardians starter Hunter Gaddis said. “He absolutely killed that ball.”

Even though momentum has refused to turn in Cleveland’s favor so far this season, there was a vibe in the third-base dugout that something special was brewing. If there’s ever going to be a player to pull the Guardians out of their funk, odds are it would be Ramírez. Even though he’s not been at his best, the four-time All-Star has still been the best hitter in this lineup. And when there were runners on first and second with two outs, the Guardians' bench was just hoping Cardinals reliever Ryan Helsley wouldn’t pitch around Ramírez.

“We were trying to hold our excitement, so they wouldn’t get the idea to walk him,” said Guardians reliever Xzavion Curry, who earned his first Major League win. “A lot of times in that situation, people do walk him and you see why because there’s a 99 percent chance that he’s gonna come through for us.”

After following the first out by walking two consecutive batters, Helsley was set on attacking Ramírez, but his 100.3 mph heater caught way too much of the plate, allowing the Guardians star to serve a line drive into the gap.

“It’s like pushing it and then hoping it just dies so we can score and get off the field,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said of watching the ball travel through the air. “It’s a lot of pushing and pulling.”

And then, the dramatic exhale followed. Ramírez delivered. The Guardians were finally on the right side of one of their Major League-leading 25 one-run games. And Ramírez can only hope he just provided the spark this team has needed to ignite.

It’s never that simple, but Ramírez has single-handedly brought life to this offense a handful of times in the past. The Guardians finally have started to see more knocks rack up in the hit column each day. The next step will be to string some of them together in order to get more runs on the board.

“This is a reminder that this is a hard game,” Ramírez said through team interpreter Agustin Rivero. “It’s not always going to go our way. But this is a long season. We got to prepare because something’s going to happen, positive or negative, but we have to be ready for all of those.”

But if the club is going to follow the precedent set by any player, it’ll be Ramírez. His double in the ninth moved him into a tie with Nap Lajoie for the sixth-most extra-base hits (535) in club history, as well as a tie with Carlos Baerga for the fifth-most go-ahead RBIs (170). His career average with runners in scoring position entering Sunday was .299 with a .924 OPS. And even though this roster (mostly) has a year of experience under its belt after 17 rookies made their debuts in 2022, it was still the youngest team in the Majors on Opening Day.

The Guardians are going through some growing pains, and they all know Ramírez will be key in leading them out of it.

“It’s José Ramírez, and from what I’ve seen he’s one of the best baseball players in the game right now,” Curry said. “He just kind of has that clutch gene in him. Every time we need a big hit or a big play, he always comes through.”