After hearing the Guardians lose to the Yankees last night in Game 5 of the ALCS, I was hoping for some local perspective. Most of what’s online is written by folks or bots looking for clicks. I won’t claim that all beat reporters are immune to rash judgement or soft-pedaling, but I think they often have a better idea of what the mood around the team is.
Yesterday morning, I caught a great conversation with Tom Hamilton, who’s only been calling Indians games for thirty-five years. His perspective on the Game 4 heroics and what they meant in the long history of the franchise is far more telling than anything written by non-credentialed media in the past 12 hours.
Over the years, The Cleveland Plain-Dealer was respected nationally for some of the better sportswriters. In its current iteration, cleveland.com, they’ve carried on the tradition. Finding an article that doesn’t require a subscription is harder and harder these days.
Rather than over-explaining or analyzing, I’ll let Joe Noga, and the Guardians speak for themselves. I’m sure that Stephen Vogt will be criticized for too long for his decisions to not walk Giancarlo Stanton twice. He explained his rationale and the game ended in the 10th and not the 6th.
One of the things Hamilton mentioned before Game 5 was how the Guardians starters had only pitched 30 innings in the first 9 postseason games. An overtaxed bullpen finally wore down.
I'd rather be sitting in a ballpark. 