CLEVELAND — The first two games of the ALCS lacked for drama.
So the Yankees and Guardians filled the final three innings of Game 3 with more than enough to make up for it, which ultimately left the Yankees needing to get back up off the mat from the gut punch they took when they were one strike away from a 3-0 series lead.
After the teams traded haymakers in the form of stunning home runs in the eighth and ninth innings, David Fry delivered the knockout punch with a two-run homer off Clay Holmes in the 10th inning to lift the Guardians to a 7-5 win on Thursday night at Progressive Field.
Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton hit back-to-back home runs off Emmanuel Clase to put the Yankees ahead 4-3 in the top of the eighth inning.
They even added an insurance run in the top of the ninth, but that only made it more painful when Jhonkensy Noel returned the favor with a game-tying, two-out, two-run shot off Luke Weaver in the bottom of the ninth.
After being one strike away from being one win away from advancing to their first World Series since 2009, the Yankees head into Friday’s Game 4 with a 2-1 series lead.
“Really felt like I let the team down there, myself down,” said Weaver, who has given up home runs in back-to-back games. “It’s baseball, things like that happen in the twist of an arm.
“It just feels a little devastating but at the end of the day, you got to bounce back. We’re still in a good position. You felt like there was some momentum there. But they earned it. It was a crazy game. The bats were hot and the ball was flying out of the park.”
Weaver and Holmes had both been terrific for the Yankees this postseason heading into Thursday — combining for 13 ²/₃ innings of one-run ball — to settle what had been one of the club’s biggest question marks heading into October.
But they faltered while pitching for the seventh time in the Yankees’ seventh playoff game, though both insisted they were OK physically.
“We’ve taken blows all year long and there’s no doubt we can overcome this and bounce back,” Holmes said.
After Judge and Stanton’s monstrous swings in the eighth inning, the Yankees tacked on an insurance run in the top of the ninth to take a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the frame.
Weaver came on to record the final out of the eighth and got ahead 0-2 to Lane Thomas with two outs in the ninth.
Thomas battled back to a full count and doubled before Weaver left a changeup down the middle — he said it slipped out of his hand — and Noel clobbered it for a game-tying shot.
Then with two outs and a runner on third in the bottom of the 10th, Holmes then left a sinker up to Fry that he clobbered, sending the crowd into a frenzy.
“Sucks losing like that, obviously, but kind of a classic game, and we’ll be ready to roll tomorrow,” manager Aaron Boone said.
For the first time this series, the Yankees allowed the Guardians’ lockdown bullpen to get the ball with a lead.
It was going as expected until Judge and Stanton left the sellout crowd of 32,531 in a stunned silence.
The Yankees entered the eighth inning trailing, 3-1, with only one hit since the second inning, as left-hander Matthew Boyd and two relievers mostly shut them down.
Hunter Gaddis got two quick outs before walking Juan Soto on four pitches, at which point the Guardians called on Clase, who allowed two home runs in 74 ¹/₃ innings during a dominant regular season.
The flame-throwing right-hander got ahead 0-2 on Judge and then, in a 1-2 count, threw him a 99 mph cutter on the outside edge that Judge smoked to right field, just high enough to clear the wall for a two-run home run that tied the game, 3-3.
Stanton came up next and again fell behind 0-2, but fouled off three pitches and then got a 1-2 slider that he crushed to right-center field for the 4-3 lead as the Yankees spilled out of the dugout in celebration.
But the high didn’t last the night as the Guardians got to Weaver and Holmes to at least make it a series.
“It hurts a little bit more knowing how hard they worked to get the game where it was,” Weaver said. “It hurts even more knowing I had 0-2 [to Thomas], we’re one pitch away after a big double play. It all stings. It hurts more knowing how close we were and how big a 3-0 [lead] would be. But that’s life.”
