CLEVELAND — On Saturday night, Guardians manager Stephen Vogt jabbed a finger in the direction of each member of his bullpen, one by one, summoning each of the four relievers most responsible for the Cleveland success this year.
For what they did was remarkable and, at the end, unsustainable, with their extraordinary workload ending in a performance collapse. «They carried us here,» Vogt said. «If it wasn't for those guys, we wouldn't have gotten this far.
They deserve a ton of credit.» Emmanuel Clase is widely regarded as baseball's best reliever — the best reliever on the planet, his manager called him, and by far the league's top reliever by WAR.
Cade Smith is likely to get strong consideration for AL Rookie of the Year. Hunter Gaddis and Tim Herrin were exceptional. Together, the big four had 290 combined innings and a 1.49 ERA.