CLEVELAND -- The raucous crowd at Progressive Field went silent as the deep drive off the bat of White Sox DH Tommy Pham kept carrying to left field. Game 1 of the ALDS was about to get out of hand.
A few seconds later, that silence turned into a full-on roar courtesy of Angel Martínez. The Guardians left fielder perfectly timed a leaping catch at the wall to prevent extra bases and potentially two runs. But that was only half of it. That roar grew even louder once Martínez fired an 84.6 mph seed to Travis Bazzana, who easily doubled up Miguel Vargas at first base after he had already rounded second at the time of the catch.
Vargas had plenty of reason to believe Pham’s fly ball would drop. Struck at an exit velocity of 106.1 mph and traveling a Statcast-projected 366 feet, the drive carried an expected batting average of .860. Instead, the spectacular 7-4-3 double play to end the top of the sixth kept Cleveland within two runs during an eventual 3-0 loss to Chicago on Saturday.
Martínez nearly provided another defensive gem one inning later by firing a strong throw home on a double down the left-field line by Colson Montgomery that beat Kyle Teel as he tried to score from first. Martínez’s throw was clocked at 82.9 mph and traveled 288 feet on a one-hopper to the plate, but catcher Austin Hedges was unable to hold onto the tag, extending Chicago’s lead to three runs.
As a former Major League catcher for 10 seasons, Guardians manager Stephen Vogt knew firsthand how difficult the play was for Hedges.
“Those plays are really hard,” Vogt said. “You have a runner coming right near your face, and the ball bouncing. The shadows had crept in at that point, too. Really tough play. Unfortunate that we didn't complete it. That would have been a big momentum shift.”
On his end, Hedges refused to give himself an excuse for not executing the play.
“I just dropped it,” Hedges said.
It’s unclear whether the outcome of Saturday’s game would have been any different had Teel been thrown out. Yes, Chicago would still have had a 2-0 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh. But the Guardians' defense was strong in the game, also turning nifty double plays on the infield in the fifth and sixth. The pitching did its job as well, with the majority of the damage coming on a two-run home run by White Sox rookie sensation Munetaka Murakami in the fourth off Cleveland starter Parker Messick.
A duplicate defensive and pitching performance -- five relievers combined to hold the White Sox to one run over the game’s final 4 2/3 innings -- by the Guardians in Game 2 on Monday would give them a good shot to even the series before it shifts to Chicago for Game 3. The improvements will need to come from the offense, which Chicago’s pitching staff stymied from start to finish as the Guardians notched just three hits and left seven runners on base.
“I mean, you could blame a bunch of things for today,” said Cleveland first baseman Nathaniel Lowe. “At the end of the day, we got shut out. We didn’t score. … We have to score, and today we didn’t.”