David Fry hits two-run, walk-off homer in 10th as Guardians stun Yankees in Game 3 of ALCS

CLEVELAND – After a few closers imploded in Game 3 of the ALCS, a former closer did the same on Thursday when David Fry smoked a two-run, walk-off homer off Clay Holmes in the 10th inning of Game 3 of the ALCS.

The heroic effort resulted in a 7-5 win for the Guardians and came shortly after Jhonkensy Noel demolished a Luke Weaver change-up to tie the game in the ninth inning. The two-run shot was the second home run Weaver allowed in as many games.

Earlier, Emmanuel Clase tried for a four-out save in his first appearance of the ALCS with the Guardians in possession of a 3-1 lead. The Yankees had mustered just one run against lefty starter Matthew Boyd and a few of Cleveland’s high-leverage relievers, and Clase had allowed just five earned runs all season while saving 47 games.

Those numbers didn’t matter to Aaron Judge in the eighth. With Juan Soto working a walk against Hunter Gaddis, Judge lined a 1-2 cutter off Clase for a two-run homer.

As the game-tying drive barely cleared Progressive Field’s right-field wall, Judge hooted and pumped his arms. Meanwhile, the Yankees’ dugout spilled onto the field to celebrate Judge’s second home run in as many games following a long October power outage.

The Yankees’ bench did the same one batter later as Giancarlo Stanton belted a go-ahead blast of his own off Clase’s signature cutter. It was Stanton’s third home run of this postseason. Clase surrendered just two homers during the regular season, but the Yankees celebrated matching that figure a bit prematurely as Cleveland slugged its way back.

The Yankees, now up 2-1 in the series, added a run in the ninth on a Gleyber Torres sac fly. That followed a bizarre baserunning play that saw Anthony Volpe get into a rundown before crashing into José Ramírez on his way to third. Ramírez dropped the ball as the two collided, giving the Yankees two runners in scoring position with nobody out.

New York also had help from Jose Trevino, who picked up an RBI single in the second inning. However, the not-so-fleet of foot catcher, playing for the first time since the regular-season finale, was then picked off by Boyd.

Cleveland rode Boyd’s left arm for the first five innings. While he walked three batters, he permitted only two hits while striking out four on 75 pitches.

Meanwhile, Yankees’ starter Clarke Schmidt made a costly mistake in the third inning when Lake City High School and Washington State alumnus Kyle Manzardo crushed a two-run homer 395 feet to right. Schmidt missed his spot on the pitch, leaving a sinker over the heart of the plate with Trevino setting up outside.

Schmidt didn’t allow any other runs over 4 ⅔ innings, but the Yankees found themselves in a tough spot in the sixth when Ian Hamilton exited with left calf tightness after covering first base on a ground ball.

Tim Mayza then entered the game, resulting in an Andrés Giménez RBI single after Lane Thomas stole third.

Now looking for a bounce-back, the Yankees will turn to Luis Gil in Game 4 on Friday. The Rookie of the Year contender has not pitched in an official game since his last start of the regular season on Sept. 28.

Gil did throw about 70 pitches over four innings in a simulated game at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 13. He faced a mix of big league and minor league hitters that day, and he’s also thrown a bullpen since.

Gavin Williams will take the ball for the Guardians. Like Gil, the righty did not pitch in the ALDS.

Dodgers blow out Mets to move one win away from World Series

When the Dodgers dug into their lineup’s postseason problems at the end of last year, they noticed a strange October-wide trend.

Teams that swung freely seemed to advance more often in the playoffs, while more disciplined clubs like the Dodgers tended to flame out.

It was an observation that stuck with some Dodgers hitters, third baseman Max Muncy among them, over another long winter last year.

“The teams that are making it to the World Series, they’re going up there and they’re getting their swings off,” Muncy told Foul Territory last October, “whereas we’re being too disciplined.”

Entering this postseason, it led to a question: Should the notoriously selective Dodgers’ lineup stick to their picky approach? Or should they turn the bats loose and get more aggressive than they are in the regular season?

The answer, as Muncy explained during the National League Division Series, was definitive.

“Go out there and play our game,” he declared.

Two weeks later, it has helped move the Dodgers to the doorstep of the World Series.

As they’ve done all October, the Dodgers grinded at-bats, took walks and hit their way to a 10-2 win over the New York Mets on Thursday night, taking a 3-1 lead in the NL Championship Series with a chance to secure the pennant in Friday’s Game 5.

While the star unit of this Dodgers run has been their shutdown bullpen, the Dodgers offense has quietly turned the page from their recent postseason struggles as well.

Entering these playoffs, the Dodgers had failed to eclipse five runs in six consecutive postseason games. After Thursday, they’ve done it in six of nine playoff games this year.

Much of that production has come via the long ball. The Dodgers’ 15 home runs this month are most in these playoffs, a total that grew by two on Thursday after Shohei Ohtani opened the scoring with a leadoff homer before Mookie Betts went deep for a two-run shot in the sixth inning to help put the game away.

However, the Dodgers have built many big innings, too. Their .243 team batting average is best among teams that advanced past the wild-card round this October. Their 44 total walks rank third, just one behind the Mets and New York Yankees. They’ve also made sure to cash in on all that traffic, recording 18 two-out RBIs (trailing only the Mets, who have played two more games than the Dodgers this postseason) and a stellar .329 batting average with runners in scoring position (shaking another bugaboo that doomed them in past postseason).

And on Thursday, against a veteran starter in Jose Quintana who found success late in the year primarily by generating chase, all of those traits were on display.

Ohtani ambushed him in the game’s first at-bat, whacking the second throw he saw — a cutter down the middle — into the Mets bullpen for his third postseason home run.

From there, though, the Dodgers took pitches (forcing Quintana to throw 83 in just 3 1/3 innings) and worked counts (getting to two balls in 20 of their first 30 at-bats). They manufactured two runs in the second, then two more in the third. And, coupled with a two-run, 4 1/3-inning start from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, they handed a comfortable 5-2 lead off to their bullpen.

Fittingly, it is Muncy who has best embodied the Dodgers’ meticulous approach.

He entered Thursday having reached safely in eight consecutive trips to the plate, then set an MLB postseason record by running the streak to 12 with three walks in the first five innings and a single in the seventh.

While Muncy has three home runs in the playoffs, he has also “down-shifted,” as Roberts put it, for several key hits in the series. His nine walks this October, meanwhile, trail only Mets slugger Pete Alonso for most in the playoffs.

Ohtani has also followed suit. Earlier this week, Roberts noted that the slugger had been expanding the zone too often early in the playoffs, having struck out more times (12) than he had reached safely (11) in his first seven postseason games.

Over the last two nights, however, Ohtani has gotten aboard in six of his 11 trips to the plate, following his first-inning home Thursday with three walks in his next three plate appearances.