M.L.B. Playoffs: Yankees-Guardians Game 5 Is Postponed Until Tuesday (Published 2022) (2024)

After two and a half hours of a rain delay, Major League Baseball announced that Monday’s winner-take-all Game 5 between the Yankees and the Guardians in their American League division series has been postponed until 4:07 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, with the Yankees taking advantage of the change to start the All-Star left-hander Nestor Cortes rather than Jameson Taillon.

In the regular season, the home team decides if a game is postponed, but M.L.B. makes the decision for postseason games. League officials had been watching the weather forecast and saw an opening to play later in the night, but the rain kept lingering. Fans, who hadn’t been provided with an update since 6:21 p.m., booed when the postponement was announced over the Yankee Stadium public address system.

The teams already dealt with a postponement in this series when Game 2 was moved from Thursday to Friday because of rain. The winner of Game 5 will play the Houston Astros in the A.L. Championship Series, which is slated to start on Wednesday night. Tuesday was supposed to be a travel and workout day for either the Yankees or the Guardians. But now, the winner will begin the next round the following day, while the Astros have not played since Saturday, when they completed a sweep of the Seattle Mariners.

It was not all bad news for the Yankees on Monday. Because of the postponement, Nestor Cortes is now expected to start Game 5 for the Yankees rather than Jameson Taillon. Cortes, an All-Star left-hander, started Game 2 and allowed two runs on six hits over five innings.

The Yankee Stadium video board has kept fans entertained throughout this delay by showing the N.Y.C.F.C. and Rangers games, in addition to Monday Night Football. Those watching the football game between the Denver Broncos and the Los Angeles Chargers saw Denver’s quarterback, Russell Wilson, throw a touchdown to tight end Greg Dulcich. Wilson, a former minor league second baseman, briefly played some spring training ball for the Yankees.

How young is this Cleveland Guardians team? Don’t be surprised if their hitters are carded on the way to the Yankee Stadium batter’s box.

The Guardians used 17 rookies this year, equaling the club record for rookie debuts set in 1912 and matched in 1914. This year’s Guardians also set a major league record for most rookies on a division- or league-winning team, breaking the previous mark of 15, which had been held by the 2014 Detroit Tigers.

It is raining at Yankee Stadium. But before it began, Guardians center fielder Myles Straw and the backup outfielder Will Brennan tossed a football around in front of the visitors’ dugout. And every so often, they threw the ball into the stands to Yankees fans. It was a nice reminder that playing catch can connect people, no matter the allegiances or history.

Straw has been consistently booed by Yankees fans whenever he is introduced in the Bronx because of an incident earlier this season. On April 23, Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres delivered a walk-off hit but fans at Yankee Stadium threw trash, including beer cans, at Guardians players. Guardians outfielder Oscar Mercado tried to run toward the outfield wall but was restrained. The Yankees outfielders Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton approached the action and pleaded with fans to stop.

On the National League side of the 2022 playoffs, the Philadelphia Phillies and the San Diego Padres barged into the league championship series, combining to dump three teams with 100 victories and three division winners. The Padres had 89 regular-season wins, two more than the Phillies, making this the first L.C.S. ever in which neither team won 90 games in a full season.

The Phillies, especially, have no reason to apologize. All three seasons in franchise history with 100 regular-season victories (1976, 1977 and 2011) ended with a loss in a best-of-five playoff round. It happens sometimes. It’s a feature of the system, not a bug.

It was announced today that Aaron Judge is one of eight A.L. finalists for the Hank Aaron Award. Voters pick one winner from each league for the award, which recognizes outstanding offensive regular seasons. Judge hit 62 home runs in addition to hitting .311 with 131 R.B.I.

There’s another big playoff game in New York City tonight, but even though it involves a Yankee Stadium tenant, it is being played in another borough. New York City F.C., which is seeking to repeat as M.L.S. Cup champion, began its playoff campaign Monday night against Inter Miami, but had to shift the game to Citi Field in Queens because the Yankees take precedence in, well, Yankee Stadium. Luckily for everyone concerned — everyone except Mets fans, that is — the Mets have already been knocked out of the playoffs.

Citi Field is not completely alien territory to N.Y.C.F.C.: The club played four regular season games there this season because of various scheduling conflicts.

There are no rain delays in soccer. The game started just after 7 p.m., and was scoreless through the first half before goals by Gabriel Pereira in the 63rd minute and Maxi Moralez in the 69th gave N.Y.C.F.C. a 2-0 lead. Héber added a third goal late, and N.Y.C.F.C. will play a conference semifinal on Sunday in Montreal.

When the left-handed starter Jordan Montgomery got off to a strong start for St. Louis, while Harrison Bader was out as he recovered from a foot injury, there was a great deal of criticism hurled at the Yankees over the trade in which those players swapped teams. Seemingly in need of pitching, the Yankees instead had an outfielder who was eventually transferred to the 60-day injured list.

No one is complaining anymore. Bader, a local kid who is seemingly beloved by his teammates, has played his typical stellar defense in center field, allowing the team to use the struggling Aaron Hicks less. And Bader has been crushing the ball in the postseason, with three home runs in four games against Cleveland, including a two-run shot in Sunday’s do-or-die Game 4.

Both teams’ bullpens are bound to play an instrumental role in Game 5, whenever it begins, as key contributors are rested. For the Guardians, the right-handers Emmanuel Clase, Trevor Stephan and James Karinchak, a Newburgh, N.Y., native, are fresh after not pitching in Game 4.

Despite that, Cleveland Manager Terry Francona did not want to turn the final game of the division series into a bullpen game. “We like Civale,” Francona said, referring to Aaron Civale, the Guardians’ scheduled starter for Monday. “The longer he stays out there, the better off we are.”

One look at the reaction from Cleveland’s bench during Josh Naylor’s emphatic home run trot in the fourth inning on Sunday would likely make it apparent why he put on such a show. With his team losing in a crucial game at home, Naylor’s 405-foot solo shot off Gerrit Cole got the Guardians within a run of tying the game and Naylor did not hold back, cradling his arms and rocking a baby while shouting in Cole’s direction. The rest of the Guardians erupted in celebration.

Emotions were high on social media, with Fox Sports’ Ben Verlander, a former minor leaguer, somehow celebrating the trot as “electric” in the moment and then calling it “quite disrespectful” 14 minutes later. Another commenter thought it was a “clown show,” while plenty of others expressed confusion. But Tom House, the former pitching coach and current internet voice of reason, labeled it as “the current baseball thing we’re all pretending is disrespectful and ruining the integrity of the game.”

Yankees Manager Aaron Boone said his team “can’t get caught up in that,” but Cole had the best reaction, saying, “Whatever. It’s cute.”

The unusual structure of this year’s division series schedule, combined with Game 2 getting postponed by rain, has produced a pitching matchup in a do-or-die game between the Yankees and the Cleveland Guardians that is less than ideal.

For the Yankees, Jameson Taillon, who had a fairly disastrous relief outing in the rescheduled Game 2, will start. Taillon was solid this season, with a 14-5 record, a 3.91 E.R.A. and 151 strikeouts, but there is no question that the Yankees would rather have started the All-Star Nestor Cortes, who would have been available on short rest if not for last week’s rain pushing his start to Thursday. Considering the numerous injuries to the Yankees’ bullpen, getting five or six innings from Taillon is crucial.

The Guardians will turn to Aaron Civale, a right-hander who had a rough start to the season, dealt with some injuries, but finished strong. His 4.92 E.R.A. certainly isn’t pretty, but he was far more effective in the last two months of the season, with a 3.35 E.R.A. in his final eight starts. He was initially left off Cleveland’s roster for the wild-card round but was added as an injury replacement.

Die-hard Yankee and Guardians fans will be hanging on every pitch of Game 5 on Monday night.

But so will some people who have no rooting interest whatsoever. Of course, we’re talking about gamblers.