Guardians bullpen walks tightrope to shut down Tigers' lineup in huge Game 2 win

Wednesday’s Wild Card Game between the Guardians and Tigers wasn’t the cleanest we’ve seen Cleveland’s bullpen this year. In fact, four of the five relievers Stephen Vogt called upon out of his bullpen allowed a baserunner, and they all had to dance around traffic on the basepaths. 

But while they bent (and bent), they didn’t break, which is perhaps the biggest reason why the Guardians are going to play against the Tigers in a winner-take-all Game 3 after picking up a 6-1 win on Wednesday.

The Guardians ‘ bullpen wasn’t perfect on Wednesday, but they did just enough to pick up a win

The ‘pen was called upon earlier than anyone in Cleveland would have liked on Wednesday after Tanner Bibee managed to go just 4 2/3 innings. While Bibee only allowed one run and struck out six, he surrendered five hits and three walks and had to deal with multiple long at-bats. 

He was relieved for Erik Sabrowski, who came in and got Riley Greene to line out to end the threat with two outs. Sabrowski set down two batters in the sixth inning before allowing a walk and being relieved for Hunter Gaddis, who got the final out of the inning after giving up a base hit. 

Gaddis pitched into the seventh inning but then he was pulled for Tim Herrin after giving up two baserunners. Herrin then had the outing of his life by striking out Jahmai Jones and Wenceel Pérez to end the threat. 

From there, Jakob Junis and Cade Smith danced around some traffic in the eighth and ninth inning, but they were able to prevent any runs from crossing the plate to help make Brayan Rocchio’s go-ahead homer stand up. 

Even if it wasn’t the cleanest outing in the world, it was a testament to the depth and uniqueness of the Guardians’ bullpen. 

Sabrowski may only have 42 regular season innings under his belt, but he’s now pitched in back-to-back days and has allowed just one earned run across six postseason innings over the past two seasons. 

Gaddis made his Guardians debut in 2021 as a starter but has since morphed into a shutdown reliever; he’s pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings over the last 48 hours. 

Herrin was lights out last season but struggled so much this year that he was sent to Triple-A in July. Even if he still finished with a season ERA close to five, he put together arguably the greatest outing of his career by snuffing out what could have been a game-changing rally by the Tigers. 

The Guardians signed Junis to a one-year deal right before the start of spring training and he’s rewarded them with a strong season that should help him get a big payday in free agency. 

And lastly there’s Smith, who has settled into the closer role since Emmanuel Clase got suspended and has now thrown 2 1/3 innings over the first two games of this year's series.

The biggest thing to watch now will be how Vogt manages things tomorrow. Smith, Gaddis and Sabrowski have all worked two straight days and were called upon to get big, high-intensity innings today. 

Kolby Allard, Joey Cantillo and Matt Festa are the only bullpen pieces who haven’t worked so far this series, but none of them have the kind of stuff that the three-headed monster at the back of the ‘pen have. 

Allard’s a soft-tossing longman, Cantillo’s spent the past month working as a (shutdown) starter and Festa has gotten a lot of run out of the bullpen but relies heavily on soft contact. 

The Guardians’ bullpen path toward postseason success has been a bit rocky, but they’ve done just enough to extend the Guardians’ season another day. If they want to extend it to the weekend, they’ll need to step up again tomorrow.