The Cleveland Guardians spent Friday night in a full-on slugfest at Kauffman Stadium, trading punches with the Kansas City Royals before finally pulling away for a 12-9 win.
It was the kind of game where nothing felt safe for long. Cleveland led early, fell behind, answered back, then had to survive one more push from Kansas City before the final out. Still, the result was exactly what the Guardians needed: they stayed on top of the AL Central at 84-76, even with the Chicago White Sox picking up a win of their own.
As a reminder, Cleveland needs to finish with a better record than Chicago to claim its third straight division title. The White Sox own the tiebreaker, so a tie at the top benefits them. For now, they are one game behind the Guardians.
Gavin Williams did not have his sharpest outing, and the Royals made him work from the jump. He gave up four runs over 3.1 innings, allowing five hits and four walks while striking out four. The traffic never really stopped, and Kansas City kept finding ways to stay close.
Cleveland, though, kept answering.
Angel Martinez opened the scoring in the first with a two-run single that brought home Steven Kwan and Jose Ramirez. Kansas City cut into that lead right away when Jac Caglianone doubled in Bobby Witt Jr., and the back-and-forth tone was set immediately.
Austin Hedges pushed the Guardians back in front in the second with his sixth homer of the season, but the Royals matched it in the bottom half. Carter Jensen launched the first of his two homers on the night, a two-run blast that also scored John Rave and tied things up again.
The game kept flipping in the middle innings. Jose Ramirez gave Cleveland a brief 4-3 lead in the fourth with a sacrifice fly that scored Hedges, only for Kansas City to respond almost immediately. Jensen tied it again with a sac fly, Rave scored once more, and Caglianone singled in Witt to give the Royals a 5-4 edge.
Then David Fry stepped in and swung the momentum back to Cleveland. He homered in the fifth with Jo Adell aboard, and Brayan Rocchio later brought in Travis Bazzana on a groundout to make it 7-5 Guardians.
Kansas City wasn’t done, though. Jensen came through again in the eighth, crushing another two-run homer off Hunter Gaddis to knot the score at 7-7 and set up another tense finish.
Cleveland finally broke it open in the ninth, and the Royals helped the cause with control problems. Nate Pearson walked the bases loaded with one out, then got Kwan to ground into a force out at the plate.
After that, the Guardians kept grinding. Jose Ramirez drew a walk with two outs to make it 8-7, Chase DeLauter followed with another bases-loaded walk against Nolan Hoffman, and Petey Halpin added one more.
Martinez then capped the inning with a two-run double that pushed the lead to 12-7.
Those insurance runs mattered. Salvador Perez answered with a two-run homer off Matt Festa in the bottom of the ninth to make things uneasy again, but Festa got the final out one batter later to seal it.
Martinez finished 2-for-5 with four RBI, while Fry drove in two and went deep. Cleveland’s defense committed two errors, but the offense more than made up for it, collecting nine hits, scoring 12 runs and drawing 13 walks against just three strikeouts.
The Guardians and Royals meet again Saturday, with Michael Wacha set to face Tanner Bibee. Cleveland’s weekend games carry major weight from here.
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