Guardians News and Notes: Frankly, I Don’t Think Anyone Expected This Much Hoopla

The Guardians secured their second walk-off in a row last night, coming back to beat the Mariners 5-4 on a night they celebrated the 1995 pennant-winning Indians, bringing a smile to the hips of everyone in Cleveland.

Nick has your recap here. I was at the game and I would describe it as the funniest game of the year. From Logan Allen looking like the wheels had finally fallen off his impressive fifth starter 2025 season in the first inning and becoming untouchable for the next five innings, to Nolan Jones finally hitting like his expected stats say he can, to Brayan Rocchio’s bloop double/triple/two-base error, to Tim Herrin inexplicably being called on to hold the lead in the 9th and doing so despite giving up three hits… it was a wild and fun one. Luckily, my five year-old was distracting me or I would have been a lot more angsty about the Herrin appearance. That and Allen’s performance this year when I said he wasn’t a major league pitcher just goes to show I should stop pretending I know something about baseball; Only a numbskull thinks he knows things about things he knows nothing about.

The news leaked out yesterday that MLB has extended the paid, administrative leave for Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clase, which is pretty frustrating and confusing. If they know they were involved, how can you not give their team and these players some kind of resolution? If, somehow, both come back clean, how can MLB possibly compensate them and the Guardians for the disastrous effects of this on their season. Oh, well. I suppose we might finally learn an answer in October. Or November. Or December. Sigh. This gag’s got whiskers on it.

It was fun to see the team honor the 1995 team, as Paul Hoynes wrote about for Cleveland dot com. Justin Lada of Locked on Guardians had the tweet of the night, prophetically stating that Allen spotted the Mariners four in the first to allow for a 9th inning walk-off win in honor of the ‘95 team:

Hoynes outlined some adjustments Allen made to keep the Mariners off balance through the final five innings he pitched. Now, if only this could be the beginning of a strong finish to the season for the Guardians, finally there would be a thingamajig that would bring everyone together.

Ryan Lewis of the Beacon Journal had a nice piece about Carlos Santana’s release, with reflections from Chris Antonetti and Stephen Vogt. ‘Los, the American people are very proud of you.

Gabriel Arias left last night’s game after getting hit in the wrist/hand and appearing to be in a lot of pain. But, what really hurts is watching you uproot your soul, chasing after money and ease of the respect of a board who wouldn’t give you the time of day. So, keep that in mind!