CLEVELAND – Every foul ball felt like a countdown to takeoff.
In the top of the 10th inning of a tied Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, Juan Soto was locked in the kind of battle he had won so many times before. Hunter Gaddis was on the hill, the latest (and ultimately last) Cleveland reliever tasked with taming a Yankees lineup that boasts an absolutely overwhelming amount of firepower.
Two batters earlier, Alex Verdugo had hit a grounder to second baseman Andrés Giménez that looked set to be an inning-ending double play. But shortstop Brayan Rocchio couldn’t handle Gimenez’s hurried, underhand pitch. A play that could have resulted in two outs produced none. It was a mistake at the worst possible time by two of the best middle infielders on the planet, and it left Gaddis with two outs still to play. After striking out Gleyber Torres, it was Soto who stood in the way of Gaddis keeping the game (and season) alive for the Guardians.
Gaddis attacked Soto with soft stuff, mixing in sliders and changeups in different spots in hopes of getting a bunt or weak contact. Soto fought every offer, gradually tilting the at-bat in his favor as he gathered information and redirected the pressure on Gaddis to attack with something more direct.
On the seventh pitch, and the first fastball of the at-bat, Soto hit cleanly. But the ball was hit at an ultra-steep 37-degree launch angle, sending it into outer space, spinning back into the night sky as all the Earthlings watched and waited. For six and a half seconds, the entire stadium — and an enthusiastic Yankee fan base watching around the world — wondered if Soto had just hit a home run to send New York to the World Series for the first time in 15 years. .
As if there really was any doubt.
As one of three active Yankees to have been to the World Series, along with Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rizzo, Soto has charted this path before. He understands what it takes to make a deep October run and has regularly delivered in the biggest moments of the biggest games. At just 25 years old (he turns 26 on Friday, the day the World Series begins), Soto has already produced a career of impressive home runs and clutch hits.
And on Saturday in Cleveland, once that towering fly ball finally landed beyond the center field wall, giving New York a 5-2 lead it wouldn’t relinquish, Soto produced arguably his most memorable swing yet.
About 90 minutes before Soto scraped the moon with his long ball, Giancarlo Stanton, a legendary October player in his own right, hit a very different kind of home run, the kind Stanton usually hits: a ridiculous laser beam that practically he teleported from his bat. to their eventual landing spot well beyond the garden fence.
For five-plus innings, Guardians ace Tanner Bibee was quiet, having answered the call with a short break and providing the ingredients for a quality start when his team desperately needed it. The Guardians expected Bibee to get more time in Game 5 after the previous two games stretched their bullpen to the extreme.
As a result, Bibee was given the opportunity to face the top of New York’s lineup for the third time leading off the sixth inning. After Torres and Soto reached base to start the frame, Bibee got a double play from Aaron Judge to diminish the threat and be one out away from escaping unscathed.
The dangerous Stanton arrived as the tying run.
Stanton went through a slider and a changeup to fall into a quick 0-2 hole. The next three pitches, however, were nowhere near the zone. With the count full, catcher Bo Naylor set up outside in hopes that Bibee could get Stanton to chase a slider. But the slider didn’t slide far enough. And against Stanton – as we have seen on several occasions this month – such a mistake can have devastating consequences.
Kaboom. Missing. If Soto’s home run took what seemed like an eternity to arrive, Stanton’s was the opposite. The instant contact was made, the outcome was determined. The ball was clearly vaporized, sent screaming on a line from home plate into the left field stands to tie the game.
Stanton had struck out in both of his previous at-bats against Bibee, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. As manager Aaron Boone explained before the game when asked what makes Stanton different, Stanton is exceptionally good at applying what he learns from each successive at-bat against the same pitcher.
“He’s just incredibly disciplined, his approach, his process, how he studies guys,” Boone said. “One thing we’ve talked about a lot over the years… he, more than most, when he sees pitchers over and over again, he really benefits. “So I think he processes when he confronts people… He’s shown in his career that he benefits more than anyone.”
“There’s something he does when he gets to know people, besides being very physically gifted.”
It’s those physical gifts that allow Stanton to hit the ball harder than possibly any player in the history of the game. His Game 5 home run left the bat at 117.5 mph. Since Statcast began tracking batted ball velocity in 2015, no player has produced more home runs with an exit velocity of at least 117 mph than Stanton with 22. Teammate Judge ranks a distant second with 10.
“He can hit harder than anyone, so there’s the physical nature of what he does that’s different than almost everyone in the world,” Boone said.
While Stanton’s swing simply tied the game, it injected a level of confidence and energy into the Yankees dugout that would endure until Soto put them ahead. It was also the swing that certified what was probably already the case: Stanton was the ALCS Most Valuable Player. His four home runs in the series raised his career total in October to 16 in just 36 games, eight of which came against Cleveland. Only Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Randy Arozarena have a higher career postseason slugging percentage than Stanton.
Six years before the Yankees struck a blockbuster deal to land Soto, it was Stanton who was acquired in a trade in hopes his big bat could help propel New York back to the promised land. Much has happened in the years since, with a series of other titanic transactions executed in search of the template that could finally break through. It’s those repeated near misses that continue to motivate the Yankees to pursue big-time superstars when they become available, with Soto, whose pending free agency is this winter’s $500 million issue, the most recent example.
While Soto managed to live up to his expectations in his first year as a Yankee, Stanton had to wait. But now they are teammates, and in one game, they combined to provide two swings that sent the Yankees, as general manager Brian Cashman put it while receiving the American League championship trophy, back where they belong.
“I didn’t plan for it to take this long,” Stanton said amid the postgame celebration in the Yankees clubhouse. “But now we’re here, and this is exactly what I came here for.”