2024 American League Championship Series

Cleveland Guardians @ New York Yankees - Games One and Two @ Yankee Stadium

Could this finally be the year that the World Series returns to the Bronx? By nearly every measure, the last fifteen years of Yankee baseball has been a success. A winning record every year, multiple deep playoff runs, an MVP, a Cy Young, a Rookie of the Year, the list could go on. But they are missing the only accolade that matters to those who don the pinstripes, a World Series title. Never mind that they already own 27 Commissioner’s trophies, and 13 additional AL pennants. The standard is a World Series, anything less a complete and utter failure. So there will be no excuses for manager Aaron Boone, in his seventh season, which he hopes will be his first advancing past the ALCS. No excuses for Aaron Judge, who will almost certainly win his second MVP, but has scuffled in the playoffs to date. No excuses for Gerrit Cole, the $300 million dollar ace and reigning Cy Young who has battled injuries this year. No excuses for Juan Soto, the hitting savant on the brink of free agency. There won’t be any excuses for these Yanks, especially with their path to the World Series clear of their recent foes, the Houston Astros. So, can they take AL pennant number 41 and vie for World Series number 28?

Standing in the Yankees way are the scrappy Cleveland Guardians. Behind the heroics of David Fry in game four and Lane Thomas in game five, Cleveland was able to eke past the Detroit Tigers despite not having a single starting pitcher complete five innings in the series. Stringing together 27 outs and keeping the powerful Yankees bats silent will be a tall task for manager Steven Vogt, but he has lots of confidence in his big four (Smith, Gaddis, Herrin, and Clase). Beyond them, however, it can get dicey. As is often the case, championship series baseball will test your mettle, an interesting challenge for such a young and relatively inexperienced ball club (and manager). The Yankees have been battle-tested, though this core has yet to advance past this round. Will the Guardians be able to block them again?

Game one will be a duel between veteran starters lefty Carlos Rodon for New York and righty Alex Cobb for Cleveland. Rodon had a great beginning to his start against Kansas City, but he quickly ran out of gas in the fourth inning. He’ll look to manage his adrenaline and energy more effectively in this one. Cobb is a wily craftsman, but he’s had his struggles against the middle of the Yankees order, particularly vs. Juan Soto. Game two will be a matchup between number one starters Gerrit Cole and Tanner Bibee. Both right handers have had mixed results from the two previous playoff starts, but the edge certainly leans toward the more experience Cole. After these two games, we will head to Cleveland for games three, four, and five* (if necessary).

Audio clips from MLB.tv

NYY Radio WFAN - John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman

CLE Radio WTAM - Tom Hamilton and Jim Rosenhaus

TBS broadcast - Brian Anderson, Ron Darling, and Jeff Francoeur

As always, shout out to Baseball Reference and SABR for statistics, box scores, background information, and much, much more.