C.J. Kayfus was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the ninth inning, scoring Petey Halpin as the Cleveland Guardians clinched an American League playoff berth with a 3-2 win over the visiting Texas Rangers on Saturday night.
Rangers closer Robert Garcia (4-8) intentionally walked Gabriel Arias to face rookie Kayfus with two outs in the ninth, but he struck him on the right arm with his second pitch. Halpin was pinch-running for Johnathan Rodriguez, who had walked, and Kyle Manzardo followed with a single.
Cleveland (87-74) locked up a wild-card spot but is also tied with the Detroit Tigers for first place in the Central Division. The Guardians would win a tiebreaker and the teams are assured of playing each other in the first round of the postseason.
Cade Smith (8-5) worked 1 2/3 innings and was the winner. The Rangers (81-80) need one victory to ensure they would finish with a winning record.
Rangers slugger Adolis Garcia, who had been 1-for-24 since coming off the injured list, belted a towering solo homer in the fourth to tie the game at 2. The 433-foot drive landed midway up the bleachers in left-center field.
Rodriguez gave the Guardians a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first with a two-run homer to right-center against Jacob Latz, just his second long ball in 98 career at-bats.
Texas got on the board three batters in when Josh Jung hit an RBI double off Joey Cantillo to score Michael Helman, who had hit a leadoff double.
Cantillo struck out eight over 5 2/3 innings, giving up two runs on three hits without a walk. Latz allowed two runs on five hits and no walks in 5 1/3 innings, striking out six.
The Guardians had a golden opportunity to go ahead in the fifth when Arias led off with a triple that bounced past left fielder Cody Freeman. Latz stranded him there by striking out Jhonkensy Noel, Brayan Rocchio and Austin Hedges.
Texas had the potential go-ahead run thrown out at the plate in the eighth as Dylan Moore was on the second half of a delayed double-steal that ended the inning.
The sellout crowd of exactly 36,000 pushed Cleveland over 2,000,000 in attendance for the second straight season, something it hadn’t accomplished since 2007 and ‘08.
–Field Level Media
