2022 MLB Playoffs: Guardians battle back to take Game 2, even ALDS with Yankees

By Deesha Thosar
FOX Sports MLB Writer

NEW YORK — The Yankees waited an extra day for the rain clouds to clear, and once they finally did, Game 2 of the ALDS ended in a disappointing extra-inning loss to the Guardians. 

Jameson Taillon entered for the 10th inning and promptly allowed two bloop hits to break the tie game and give Cleveland the lead. Jose Ramirez hit a double to right field and wound up on third following a Josh Donaldson throwing error. Then Oscar Gonzalez easily drove Ramirez in on a bloop single to shallow right before Josh Naylor delivered the final blast, an RBI double, for the only edge the Guardians would need to tie the series at one game apiece.

That was Taillon’s first career appearance as a reliever, and it didn’t take long for that experiment to become a complete failure. He faced three batters and did not record a single out. Guardians shutdown closer Emmanuel Clase effortlessly retired the Yankees in the bottom of the 10th, sealing Cleveland's 4-2 victory on Friday at Yankee Stadium.

"I kind of enjoyed today because we hung around," Guardians manager Terry Francona said. "And I kept thinking, we are going to find a way."

There’s good news and bad news that came out of the Yankees’ loss to the Guardians.

The good: Giancarlo Stanton notched his first home run of the postseason, a thundering, two-run blast in his first at-bat Friday. 

The bad: Aaron Judge went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts and heard boos from the home crowd after his fourth K. Judge is 0-for-8 with seven strikeouts and a walk so far in the ALDS. On Friday, he became the first player in MLB postseason history to record four strikeouts in a playoff game four times in his career, with the other three all coming in the 2017 ALDS also against Cleveland. Afterward, Judge said his timing has been off this series.

"When you’re a little late, you miss the pitches that you usually do some damage on, and you’re swinging at stuff you usually don't," he said. "I’ve had two bad games in my career multiple times. It’s part of it. You just gotta learn from the mistakes and get ready for the next one because guess what? There’s no breaks right now."

"The series ain’t over," Stanton said of Judge’s recent struggles at the plate. "He’s got time. And [Game 2] is over now, so that don’t matter. We’re going to win two out of three, and he’s going to help us do so."

The Yankees are hoping Judge saved some juice for the playoffs after his historic, 62-home-run regular season. On the flip side, at least their other 6-foot-6 slugger is showing signs of heating up.

Stanton is consistently the reserved, business-as-usual type, whether at-bats don’t go his way or home runs are deposited over the wall. But in the first inning Friday, home-plate umpire Jeremie Rehak’s strike zone punctured an otherwise stone-faced attitude. Stanton got a 3-1 strike call from Rehak on an obvious ball four that fell well below the zone and overlapped with the previous Shane Bieber cutter, which was correctly called a strike.

Stanton, who took a step toward first base when Rehak decided it was a strike, was emphatically upset. He put both his hands out in front of him, palms up, as if to implore Rehak to reconsider his strike-two call. The crowd booed. After a moment, Stanton gathered himself and stepped back into the box. On the very next pitch, a 93 mph four-seamer in the middle of the zone, he homered, and he watched the ball sail 353 feet to right field before flipping his bat and rounding the bases.

"If I stayed worried about that I wouldn’t have been able to hit that homer," Stanton said of his frustration with the strike zone. "So yeah, that angered me a bit. But you still gotta be locked in for what’s next."

The Yankees took an early 2-0 lead over the Guardians in the first inning, and Stanton was visibly fired up about the sequence of events. His 10 career playoff homers are the second-most in a player's first 20 career postseason games, trailing only Carlos Beltran, who cranked 11 home runs in his first 19 playoff games.

Yankees starter Nestor Cortes, pitching in his first career playoff game, wound up needing more than just the two runs of support. Cortes was brilliant to begin the game, retiring 10 of his first 13 batters faced and throwing just 21 pitches in his first two scoreless innings. Then in the fourth, the pesky Guardians worked terrific at-bats against him and cranked up his pitch count. Cortes allowed an RBI single to Andres Gimenez and a solo home run to Amed Rosario, the latter tying the game 2-2 and silencing the crowd of 47,535.

"When they put the ball in play, they create havoc," Cortes said of the Guardians. 

Now the Yankees travel to Cleveland for Game 3 of the ALDS, which will take place at 7:37 p.m. ET Saturday on TBS. Yankees right-hander Luis Severino will go toe-to-toe against Guardians righty Triston McKenzie as New York looks to get back in front of Cleveland in the best-of-five series.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets for the New York Daily News. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.