The Guardians’ path through October is now mapped out, and the first thing on their calendar is a little extra rest.
Cleveland, which earned the No. 2 seed in the American League, gets a first-round bye and won’t play until Saturday, when the AL Division Series opens at Progressive Field. The opponent will be the winner of the wild card series between the Houston Astros and Chicago White Sox.
That wild card matchup starts Tuesday at Daikin Park in Houston, with the Astros holding the No. 3 seed and the AL West title. The Guardians saw both possible opponents plenty during the regular season, going 2-4 against Houston and 6-7 against Chicago. The postseason history is mixed, too: Houston knocked Cleveland out of the 2018 AL Division Series, while the Guardians and White Sox have never met in the postseason.
The rest of the bracket is already set around them. In the American League, the Yankees-Red Sox winner will face Tampa Bay, while in the National League the winner of Cubs-Padres will meet Milwaukee and the Phillies-Braves winner gets the Dodgers.
The Division Series schedule gives Cleveland a simple road: Game 1 on Saturday, Oct. 3, then Game 2 on Monday, Oct. 5, both at home, before the series shifts to the other club’s park for Game 3 on Wednesday, Oct. 7 and Game 4 on Thursday, Oct. 8 if needed. A decisive Game 5 would be back in Cleveland on Saturday, Oct. 10.
If the Guardians move on, the AL Championship Series begins Monday, Oct. 12.
The National League Championship Series opens the day before, on Sunday, Oct. 11.
The ALCS runs through a possible Game 7 on Tuesday, Oct. 20, while the NLCS could stretch to Monday, Oct. 19.
Then comes the World Series, with Game 1 set for Friday, Oct. 23.
Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 would be played at the site of the team with the better record, while Games 3, 4 and 5 would be at the site of the lower-record club. The Fall Classic could end on Saturday, Oct.
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Guardians Final Roster Move Just Clarified A Key Postseason Battle
The Guardians have started to sort out their postseason pitching picture, and the latest move points to how they want to cover the middle innings if games get hectic. Austin Peterson was added to the pitching staff for the playoffs, giving Cleveland another bulk relief option after he handled that role behind starter Parker Messick in the season finale.
The corresponding roster change came with Craig Yoho coming off the postseason roster, a shift that underscores how fluid the back end of October pitching plans can be. Clevelands current setup appears to center on Parker Messick and Gavin Williams in the rotation, with Daniel Espino and Joey Cantillo lined up to bridge the game behind them, while Tanner Bibee and Foster Griffin remain possibilities to work out of the bullpen. [Read more 🡒]
A Tragic Indians Game Still Carries One Haunting Irony
Griffith Stadium was the setting for a grim moment on Sept. 29, 1943, when a game between the Cleveland Indians and Washington Senators was interrupted by tragedy in the stands. A wild throw sent a ball sailing into the crowd and struck fan Clarence Stagemyer in the head, leaving him with a concussion and a fractured skull.
Stagemyer died the following day, and the incident is believed to be the first case of a fan dying as a direct result of a ball-related injury at a Major League Baseball game. For a game that would otherwise have faded into the long blur of wartime baseball, the memory lingers because of the terrible irony at its center. [Read more 🡒]
Guardians Fans Found A Perfect Way To Thank Their Unlikely Hero
Hunter Goodman, a catcher for the Colorado Rockies, ended up in the middle of a Cleveland celebration after his home run helped secure the Guardians their third straight American League Central Division title. It was an odd little postseason-adjacent twist, the kind of moment that links two fan bases in a way nobody could have predicted, and it quickly turned Goodman into an unlikely hero in Northeast Ohio.
Guardians fans responded with a gesture that fit the moment, donating more than $7,000 to Clothes to Kids of Denver, the charity Goodman supports. The group helps provide clothing for school-age students from low-income or in-crisis families in the Denver area, giving Cleveland supporters a chance to turn a division-clinching swing into something a little bigger than baseball. [Read more 🡒]