Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> in the best-of-seven.<\/p>\n\u201cEverybody here is just gritty,\u201d said Williams. \u201cThey want the win. Everybody has a purpose \u2026 and knowing what you need to do in the right situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cleveland\u2019s vaunted bullpen shone again with four shutout innings, capped by a four-out save from Cade Smith. The closer from Abbotsford, B.C., came on in the eighth with two outs and the tying run at third base and won a 10-pitch duel against Yandy Diaz with a 98 m.p.h. upper-rail fastball for a swinging strike three, and then went three-up, three-down in the ninth.<\/p>\n
Game 4 is scheduled for Friday evening, although forecasted rain left \u201ceverything up in the air,\u201d said Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, who was full of praise for his team and his closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat an unbelievable at-bat and battle that was,\u201d he said of the eighth. \u201cThat’s what Cade does. He’s efficient, and he’s ready to take the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether he gets another chance to do it Friday as scheduled or not, the Rays plan to start Nick Martinez next, while the Guardians were still considering their options.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The potential of an extra rest day opened up possibilities for more creative pitcher usage, the type both teams have employed throughout October to this point.<\/p>\n
Martinez, for example, pitched out of the bullpen during the division series and sat in the bullpen for Game 1 and was in the dugout with his cleats on, in case needed, for Game 2. \u201cWhatever the team needs, I’m up for it,\u201d he said. \u201cThat’s been my MO since coming back from Japan, and my whole career, really. That’s got to be the mentality for the rest of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Same with Game 3 starter Griffin Jax, who also pitched in relief against the Yankees the last round and bounced between roles all season. He gave up three runs in 4.2 innings Thursday, bled for one in the second when Jo Adell took a changeup for a called third strike, won an ABS challenge to reverse the call, worked a 3-2 walk that was upheld after catcher Liam Hicks challenged unsuccessfully, and then scored on a Nathaniel Lowe double lashed to right.<\/p>\n
The Rays did their only damage against Williams in the fourth when, after going nine-up, nine-down the first time through, Diaz led off with a double. After back-to-back strikeouts of Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero, Victor Mesa Jr. walked before Chandler Simpson ripped a 2-1 sweeper into right-field corner for a two-run triple.<\/p>\n
Only one Rays batter reached the rest of the way, and they finished with three hits and a walk.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to hit,\u201d said manager Kevin Cash. \u201cWe went into the game, we knew we had our challenges. But look up, two runs on (three) hits, you\u2019ve got to be perfect to win games like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not saying you can’t, but ideally, we start getting some bigger at-bats going and piecing together a really talented offensive club all season long. Very confident that they’ll bounce right back and be ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Halpin, the 24-year-old rookie who posted a .594 OPS in 83 games this season, has been ready to go since being inserted as the starting centre-fielder for Game 5 against the White Sox. He doubled twice that night and Thursday; after a Patrick Bailey single, he caught a sinker and drove it out to right-centre, complete with a big bat-flip, for a 3-2 lead.<\/p>\n
The bullpen did the rest, including a clean seventh from Edmonton lefty Erik Sabrowski and, of course, Smith\u2019s shut-down work, beginning with the dramatic Diaz duel.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust putting up that kind of at-bat against Cade was impressive in itself,\u201d said Halpin. \u201cAnd just watching (Smith) ripping right on right splitters, it was like, this is competitive baseball, this is the best that it gets. It’s fun to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sentiment is universal, which is why players for both teams, but especially the pitchers, are willing to push themselves so far beyond the norms.<\/p>\n
Williams embodied that in the division series, and the Guardians were cognizant of that Thursday, with Vogt lifting him after five innings despite only 70 pitches because his fastball velocity dipped to 95.3 from 98.2 the previous frame.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we go into the game, we have a limit that everybody has. He was a little lighter today just with what he did over the weekend,\u201d explained Vogt. \u201cBut you also have to watch the game. They’ll tell you when they’re getting tired, or they’ll tell you when things aren’t starting to go well. For Gavin, the first four innings, he looked sharp, and he still looked sharp in the fifth. I just didn’t like the velo drop. He’s feeling fine. We\u2019ve just got to get him out of there at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams noticed the fifth-inning dip, \u201cbut I’ve done something that I never did last week, so I thank (Vogt and Willis), too. They noticed it a little bit. See what I’ve got in two days or five days. Whatever they need from me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such are the demands of pitching in October and the price of post-season success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2013 Gavin Williams, at six-foot-six and 250 pounds, is a beast of a man who was a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":934502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82],"class_list":["post-934501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}