CLEVELAND — The box score will say Travis Bazzana hit a two-run home run in the ninth inning. The win probability chart will tell you how unlikely that moment was to matter.
Down 3-0 after four, the Cleveland Guardians needed a three-run eighth just to pull even, then watched Patrick Bailey get thrown out at the plate leading off the ninth — an aggressive send on Steven Kwan’s double down the left-field line, erased by a relay from third baseman Nick Gonzales to catcher Rafael Flores Jr. That’s the kind of baserunning out that sinks comeback innings. Win probability doesn’t reward effort.
Then Bazzana, the first overall pick in the 2024 draft and already a rookie All-Star, sat on a 1-0 changeup from Dennis Santana and drove it 414 feet to center field. His eighth homer of the season. His first career walk-off. A 5-3 final that split the doubleheader after Pittsburgh took the opener 7-1.
Santana fell to 2-5. Cade Smith, Cleveland’s seventh pitcher of the night, retired the side in order in the ninth and picked up his third win against one loss. Kwan finished with three hits.
The game’s strangest play arrived in the third inning, and it had nothing to do with Bazzana. Pittsburgh’s Esmerlyn Valdez hit a towering fly ball to shallow center that Statcast tracked to an apex of 204 feet with a hang time of 7.4 seconds — a popup by any reasonable measure. Outfielder Petey Halpin lost it in the lights and haze, the latter a byproduct of Canadian wildfire smoke drifting over the Cleveland area. The ball landed in right-center. Nick Gonzales scored from second. What should have been an easy out became an RBI double and a 2-0 Pirates lead.
A 204-foot apex is not a line drive. It’s a can of corn that turned into a run because atmospheric conditions intervened. The Guardians’ deficit, in that moment, was as much meteorological as baseball.
Cleveland’s eighth-inning rally was more conventional. Chase DeLauter’s single to right scored Kwan. Brayan Rocchio came home on a wild pitch. Kahlil Watson’s single to right brought DeLauter across. Three runs on three different mechanisms — a base hit, a pitch that got away, another base hit. No heroics required, just pressure applied until something cracked.
The ninth was where the narrative and the numbers briefly diverged. Bailey’s out at the plate was the wrong kind of aggression — a runner on first trying to score on a double is a roughly 50-50 proposition even with two outs, and the relay beat him cleanly. But Bazzana stepped in with Kwan still standing on second, and Santana already behind 1-0 in the count. A changeup in a fastball count is a pitcher trying to steal a strike. Bazzana didn’t let him.
The ball left the bat at a trajectory that required no replay confirmation. Four hundred fourteen feet to center field is a no-doubt homer in any park, in any conditions — smoke, haze, or otherwise.
Pittsburgh will send NL All-Star Paul Skenes (8-3, 3.57 ERA) to the mound for the series finale. Cleveland counters with left-hander Joey Cantillo (8-4, 3.56 ERA).
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