Bazzana's 414-Foot Bomb Caps Cleveland's Three-Run Ninth
Travis Bazzana hit a 414-foot home run to center in the ninth inning, scoring Steven Kwan and turning a tied game into a 5-3 Cleveland win over Pittsburgh. The Guardians erased a three-run deficit without recording a single extra-base hit until that final swing.
Pittsburgh looked like it had this one locked up through seven innings. Khristian Curtis was the story on the mound — 5.0 innings, just 2 hits, 0 earned runs, 4 strikeouts — while the Pirates built their lead the old-fashioned way: a Brandon Lowe sacrifice fly in the second, an Esmerlyn Valdez RBI double in the third, and a run that scored on a catcher's throwing error in the fourth. Just like that, it was 3-0 Pittsburgh, and Logan Allen was already out of the game having allowed 6 hits and 2 earned runs in 3.1 innings. Cleveland's bullpen was doing its job, but the offense was nowhere.
Then the eighth inning happened, and it happened fast. Chase DeLauter singled to right to score Kwan and make it 3-1. A wild pitch by Pittsburgh's Soto scored Rocchio to cut it to 3-2. Then Kahlil Watson singled to right, DeLauter scored, and just like that it was tied at three. That Watson single was the moment the game flipped — Cleveland's win probability swung from 28% to 62%, a 33-point jump on a single ground ball through the right side. The story of that inning appears to be Pittsburgh's bullpen simply running out of answers: Shawn Armstrong followed with a perfect inning of relief for Cleveland, striking out three, keeping the tie intact and handing the game to the ninth.
Cade Smith handled the ninth for Cleveland — 1.0 inning, 0 hits, 2 strikeouts — but the real punctuation mark belonged to Bazzana. With Kwan on base after going 3-for-4 on the night with 2 runs scored, Bazzana turned on a pitch and sent it 414 feet to center. Two runs, a 5-3 lead, and a walk-off that wasn't even close. Bazzana finished 2-for-3 with a home run, 2 RBI, and a run scored. What looks like the takeaway here: Pittsburgh's starting pitching gave them every reason to win this game, and Cleveland's offense gave them every reason to lose it through seven innings. Neither of those things ended up mattering once the eighth inning started unraveling and Bazzana stepped in to end it.