The Cleveland Guardians are one loss from going home after a 3-2 hole in the best-of-seven AL Championship Series, and Game 6 arrives Monday night at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. Stephen Vogt has already ruled out right-hander Gavin Williams, leaving Cleveland without a confirmed starter for the game that could end its season.
Vogt did not soften the moment. “Let's go. We don't have another choice,” he said, adding, “This is when this team thrives.” That message fits a club that has already won elimination games this postseason, but it does not answer the question hanging over Monday: who takes the ball when the Guardians need two more road wins to stay alive?
Steven Kwan is one reason Cleveland still has faith in the situation. He had two of the Guardians' five hits in Sunday’s 3-1 loss and also made an outfield assist, throwing out Taylor Walls trying to score from second base on Jonathan Aranda’s fourth-inning single to left before making a leaping catch at the center-field wall on Victor Mesa Jr.’s eighth-inning drive. After the loss, Kwan said, “I think it'll help a ton knowing that we're able to do it, facing elimination,” and he added that the group feels better here because it has “some wins under our belt.”
That belief is not empty. The Guardians already survived a win-or-go-home stretch earlier in this postseason, dropping the first two AL Division Series games at home before taking the next two in Chicago and then closing with a 2-0 win at Progressive Field in Game 5. They also carry a road record that has traveled far better than their home mark, and their season turnaround from a 60-65 start on Aug. 17 to a division title showed how quickly this group can change the story. Still, the current problem is specific: Foster Griffin began Game 1 and was the bulk reliever in Game 4 on Saturday, while Williams started Game 3 on Thursday and allowed two runs in five innings, so Cleveland’s Game 6 plan remains unsettled.
Parker Messick was also part of the picture, allowing two runs, five hits and three walks over two innings while working through a year that has already reached 200 innings. But the bigger issue for Cleveland is simpler than any stat line: teams that trail 3-2 after five games in the ALCS have come back to win seven of 23 times, and the Guardians now need to be one of them. Kwan’s last word after Sunday was the one that fits Monday best: “Just have to trust our plans, turn the page and see what happens tomorrow.”
