Estevan Florial.
EL NUEVO DIARIO, 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 comeback victory.
The stats tell you that the Guardians shouldn’t have beaten the Yankees, 8-7, in the bottom of the tenth at Progressive Field. Baseball Savant gave Cleveland just a 21% chance of winning with one out in the frame — three batters before Andrés Giménez served up the sacrifice fly to right field.
But the Guardians have gotten used to beating the odds this season. We expected similar offensive production to last year, when Cleveland averaged 4.1 runs per game, after the team made few moves to upgrade the roster. Instead, he has averaged 5.4 runs per game so far. We’ve been taught to believe that the rotation has to be this organization’s strongest asset, but so far, injuries and setbacks have caused problems. And yet, the Guardians have 10 wins in their first 15 games.
Sunday gave us a good look at how this happened.
Florial sticks to the process
Maybe all Estevan Florial needed was for his former team to come to town.
Florial has put a lot of pressure on him this year. One of the only moves the Guardians made during the offseason to try to improve this offense was trading Cody Morris to the Yankees in exchange for Florial. Since the start of spring training, he has had trouble getting his bat going.
That was until the Yankees came to Northeast Ohio. Florial showed signs of life on Saturday, hitting a home run during the doubleheader against his former club, but solidified it on Sunday by breaking a 4-4 tie in the bottom of the eighth with a pinch-hit solo home run. He hit Cleveland’s first pinch-hit home run in the eighth inning or later since Jason Giambi did it on September 24, 2013, against the White Sox.
“That’s a very special moment for Flo,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said.
Florial has been working to find the offensive answer. In recent days he has stuck to a plan that has so far reaped more benefits than he has seen all year. Now, the Guardians can expect this to stick.
“It’s a big reason he’s with us, it’s the quality of his at-bats. He has some power and ability to impact the ball,” Vogt said. “Winning the day doesn’t necessarily mean you get three hits. It’s, ‘Did you have three or four quality at-bats?’ Because when you continue to have consistent quality at-bats, the results will come.”
Athletics is key
The focus will be on the Guardians rallying from a two-run deficit in the 10th inning by relying on their feisty nature and forcing three runs across the plate with a force out, a fielder’s choice and a sacrifice fly. But without the 3-2-3 double play in the top half of the draw, that doesn’t happen.
With one out and runners on second and third, Alex Verdugo grounded out to David Fry at first base. Fry fielded and fired to Bo Naylor, who not only tagged the runner trying to score, but turned and fired back to first base to end the inning with the double play.
“That’s a very difficult play for Bo,” Fry said. “I know being able to play receiver is not the first thing on your mind. The first thing you should do is, ‘I have to post this right here.’ But for him to have the presence of mind to turn around and hit the double play was huge.”
“It’s two incredibly athletic people, going toe-to-toe, making a play,” Vogt said. “I mean, it probably doesn’t get talked about enough about the amount of athleticism and baseball IQ on that play. That should be the number one on SportsCenter, MLB, whatever the best plays are, that should be the best play today.”
His resilience is back and 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 the end of the 24th. What we do know is that the resilience the team had and relied on two years ago is back, and could be stronger than before.
“We held our own through this whole stay at home,” Vogt said. “We are not going to give up. That’s one of the things I heard the guys shout on the way back to the clubhouse: ‘We’re not giving up! We don’t give up!’ And that’s what this group is about.”
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2024-04-15 01:12:33
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