The Guardians' bullpen had a near-perfect season -- until the end - ESPN

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. And in the series against the Yankees, that group allowed 11 runs in 13 innings. Clase was charged with the loss in Game 4, and Gaddis surrendered Juan Soto's game-winning three-run homer in Game 5.

The relievers' credo is that they won't acknowledge weariness, and that they will take the ball if asked. The Guardians won the AL Central largely because they had the most effective relievers — their bullpen ERA was more than half a run better than any other team's — and with those four Cleveland pitchers ranking among the top 11 in appearances, Vogt kept handing them the ball, into October. Clase threw in seven of Cleveland's 10 playoff games, Gaddis in eight, and Herrin and Smith each appeared in nine. And performance cracks began to show.

«I mean, everybody is tired,» Vogt acknowledged after the Game 4 loss. «I think we've used them a lot. We've had to. It's who we are.»

Teams that rely on