It comes one pitch at a time, one burst of brachial energy followed by another. When your guy is in the batter's box it's every strike a torment, every ball a salve. You're at the mercy of the count, those two numbers that capture the state of the duel: the lowering pall of 0-2 and 3-0's expectant gleam. Baseball communicates in discrete events, and it only takes a single one to turn an apparent rout into a fierce struggle. The game never tries to overwhelm you with an unceasing stream of bustle and bravado, being fully aware that no time limit dictates its end of regulation. It slows itself down. Between each pitch is space for the players to breathe, and it's a respite for the viewers, too. It's a pause that lets everyone reset and recover their poise, even more so with the high-strung nerves of the postseason. Because in October baseball, every pitch is epochal.
Three minutes ago in we entered a regime in which franchise history can be written and reality can outrun hyperbole: two outs, bottom of the ninth, at home in Cleveland down 3-5 with no one on base in Game Three of the best-of-seven ALCS. Already trailing 0-2 in the series against the New York Yankees, the heartbeat of the Cleveland Guardians' 2024 season was fading into a faint and indistinct murmur. Luke Weaver, the lanky Yankees closer, had just dispatched José Ramírez and Josh Naylor through a stadium-silencing double play. Up to bat was Lane Thomas, a much maligned deadline acquisition turned postseason hero, the man who skied a go-ahead grand slam off of Tigers ace Tarik Skubal in the last game of the ALDS. Thomas found himself in a hairy situation: righty on righty against one of the hottest pitchers to take the mound this October.
Weaver led off with a changeup that just nipped the bottom of the zone. Strike one. He mixed things up and uncorked a middle-up fastball that caught Thomas looking. Strike two. The Yankees closer was one good pitch away from rolling over two strikes and two outs into three strikes, three outs, and a commanding 3-0 series lead. In all probability that's exactly what should've occurred: simulate the game 100 times from that point onward and it's over after a few pitches in 95. But the world, and especially baseball, never lives in averages—it demands that everything must be played out to the irrevocable end. And so every Guardians fan, whether they knew it or not, held on to that kernel of faith that gives everybody hope even in the face of boundless resignation.
Ball one. Ball two. Ball three. All of a sudden Thomas had clawed his way back to a full count, topped off with a stone-cold take on a low changeup. Weaver would have to attack the zone on the next pitch; being up two, walking Thomas and giving Cleveland a chance to tie would be unthinkable. These are the moments when pitchers can transcend themsleves, when 98mph and 99mph fastballs can hit triple digits and sliders can tail in with that extra inch of break. It didn't happen this time. The heater came down and in and Lane Thomas was all over it, golfing it up and off the left-field wall and skittering into second base with a stand-up double. What is improbable is still possible, and Thomas had extended the bottom of the ninth by one more batter, bringing the tying run to the plate. The game does not end until they record the 27th out.
The phrase "tying run to the plate" is a pure expression of redoubled hope. In those games of continuity where the clock is the dictator there's no decisive boundary between the possible and the impossible—Rodrygo netted two goals in the 90th minute and Reggie Miller racked up eight points in nine seconds. It's different in baseball. Before Thomas's double it was logically impossible for the Guardians to tie the game, forbidden by the rules. But now the mere possibility that the next batter could launch a homer and make it an even 5-5 means we're sitting on ground that's infinitely sturdier, infinitely rosier than that of one pitch ago.
It's 8:40 PM EDT in Cleveland; 5:40 PM PDT in Berkeley. I'm sitting alone in my office on the seventh floor of Evans Hall and sloping rays from the setting sun filter through swatches of gold and scarlet to limn the room with a warm and fuzzy glow. Hardly the ambience to watch what is a prime-time playoff game on the East Coast. I also cancelled my Max subscription last month, when blind penny-pinching optimism drove me to such depths of naivety that I thought the school's purported Max-subscription-through-Xfinity would actually work. So now all I have is a dirty laptop screen playing a laggy and disreputable stream, reflecting the dying sunlight into my eyes. That's enough for me—I'm rooted to my chair, eyes riveted to the game, spellbound.
The rookie Jhonkensy "Big Christmas" Noel represents the tying run. This man is a bona fide power hitter, and Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt has put him in for one reason and one reason only: to hit the ball into the stands and tie the game at five. As Noel settles into his batting stance, I cannot help but remember his first at-bat in the major leagues not even five months ago, which culminated in a home run in Camden Yards to deep center field. Here, in the most critical plate appearance of his nascent career, every Guardians fan is hoping that he can dig in and capture some of that magic once more.
Weaver's first pitch is a fastball that misses way outside and we're in a hitter's count, still riding that wave of momentum kicked up by Thomas's double. I convince myself that Weaver's lost it, ruffled enough by giving up a game-extending hit that he no longer has the command or the finesse. The Yankees closer is fishing for a strike now, and one misplaced pitch is all it takes.
There is no sound more satisfying than a barreled ball. The crack of wood against leather, a bolt in the aural matrix; it's a disturbance that telescopes the next five seconds into an instant of clairvoyance. You see the images flash by before they happen—the ball soaring through the air, the crowd coming to its feet, the hero rounding the bases.
Jhonkensy Noel barreled the 1-0 pitch. One of the strongest players in the league, he cranked his bat up to 80mph and squared up Weaver's wayward 88mph changeup, blasting the ball off his bat for a blazing 109mph line drive into the murk of the Cleveland night. Gone. A strike that sought out the faltering heart of the 2024 Cleveland Guardians season and shocked it back to life. I can't even tell you where it landed.
It's in these moments when you wish you're back home. As I'm going totally berserk in my office, loosing a flurry of expletives and rapping the palm of my hand on my hapless desk, I can imagine the primordial roar that erupted at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, rippling all the way out to the Cuyahoga Valley and beyond. I can envision the euphoria in the dugout, the drunken bacchanals in the bleachers, and the fans hugging and high-fiving those seated next to them by sheer chance, united in a catharsis that can only be provoked by bottom-of-the-ninth heroics. And though every fiber of my being yearns to teleport into that maelstrom of emotion, I also know that I don't need to be there to celebrate. I too feel the rush, the rush that vindicates all fandom and propels me to those heights I've only reached a few times my whole life. I feel it and share it with everyone else from Cleveland who's watching the game, whether they're there in person or not. We know what we have, we carry it with us wherever we go, and we wouldn't give it up for anything else.
It's now 8:41 PM EDT in Cleveland; 5:41 PM PDT in Berkeley. Though my heart is still palpitating, but I'm locked in, lasered in on the next at-bat. Because in October baseball, every pitch is epochal.