Fans sitting in their seats at Progressive Field on a chilly October night had their hearts broken at around 8:30 p.m., but they stuck around because the Yankees still had to get six outs. The fans stuck around, and oh, are they glad they did, because now they can tell their friends they were witnesses to David Fry smashing a two-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning on Oct. 17 in a finish they will never forget. “That was an incredible game,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “All the emotions, ups and downs, back and forth, you name it. If there’s an emotion, we all felt it on both sides.” First Big Christmas, aka Jhonkensey Noel, crushed a two-out, two-run pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the ninth deep into the left-field bleachers to tie the score at 5-5. Then Fry, the team’s best clutch hitter in the playoffs this year, showed the Yankees the Guardians would not go quietly in their first American League Championship Series in eight years. Instead of trailing the best-of-seven series three games to none, the Guardians can get it back to even on Oct. 18 with Gavin Williams on the mound. Mr. Clutch for the #Guardians, David Fry, talks about his dramatic two-run home run in the bottom of the 10th Thursday night to stun the #Yankees, 7-5, and cut New York's lead in the ALCS to 2-1. pic.twitter.com/1qfblCba8G — Jeff Schudel (@jsproinsider) October 18, 2024 “Bunts, bombs and chaos,” Fry said. “I think it’s who we are as a team. Everyone genuinely loves each other. We come to the field excited to play.” Fans were already thinking about how to celebrate with the Guardians leading, 3-1, with two out and Yankees’ Juan Soto on first in the top of the eighth inning. Vogt called for Emmanuel Clase to relieve Hunter Gaddis with Aaron Judge due up. Judge homered off Gaddis in Game 2 in New York, so Vogt didn’t want to risk that happening again. Clase, nearly invincible in the regular season, gave up a two-run, opposite-field home run to Judge and a solo home run to Giancarlo Stanton seven pitches later, turning a 3-1 lead into a 4-3 deficit. Clase gave up only five earned runs and two home runs in 74 outings over 74 1/3 innings in the regular season. He was the losing pitcher in Game 2 of the ALDS with the Tigers when he gave up a three-run home run to Kerry Carpenter in the top of the ninth inning in a 0-0 game. Vogt went to Clase in the eighth because Gaddis gave up the home run to Judge two nights earlier. If the same situation arises as long as the Guardians are still playing, there is no question about who will get the ball. Vogt said it will go to Clase, who led the Majors with 47 saves in 2024. “There aren’t enough adjectives to talk about how good he was this season,” Fry said. “He had to have set records for just about everything you can do as a closer. You just hand him the ball, and I feel like we don’t even watch the game because we know the game is over. “So we were like, obviously, shook, but it was just like, ‘You know what? It’s time we give him a break. He carried our team all year long in the ninth inning, and it’s our time to pick him up,’ and I’m glad we did.” Surprisingly, especially considering he’s a rookie, the one person who wasn’t super excited was Noel. “He pinch-hit to hit a homer,” Vogt said. “That’s why we sent him up there.” Noel homered 13 times in the regular season. His mid-October blast? It might as well have been a mid-July blast. “It’s nothing special,” Noel said through an interpreter. “It’s the same sensation in a regular game and you have to have the same approach. We have a lot of games left ahead of us, and that’s the focus, to get the same sensation when you hit the ball.” C’mon, Jhonkensey. Really? What about the fans going crazy when you were rounding the bases? “That’s special, obviously,” Noel said. “I feel we have the best fans in the world, and the way how they cheered us up through the whole season is special. The only focus for us is trying to bring the ring for them. One game today; tomorrow we have another one and try to focus on keep winning that way.” Lost in the euphoria of how it ended is what the Guardians did earlier in the game, Rookie Kyle Manzardo clouted a two-run home run 395 feet into the right-field seats in the bottom of the third inning to give the Guardians a 2-1 lead — the first time they’d been ahead in the series with the Yankees, who have a payroll roughly $210 million higher than that of the Guardians. The Guardians played small ball to add a run in the bottom of the sixth. Lane Thomas walked and moved to second when Daniel Schneeman grounded out to first. Thomas stole third and scored on a single to center by Andres Gimenez. "That was an incredible game," says manager Stephen Vogt after the #Guardians scored two runs in the ninth inning and two in the 10th to beat the #Yankees, 7-5, in Game 3 of the ALCS Thursday night. pic.twitter.com/6gWT5HofHq — Jeff Schudel (@jsproinsider) October 18, 2024 Matthew Boyd has been the Guardians’ best starting pitcher in the postseason. If the Guardians can stretch the ALCS to seven games, Boyd is in line to get the ball for Game 7 on Oct. 22 in Yankee Stadium. Boyd allowed one run in the second inning Oct. 17 and nothing more in a game the Guardians desperately needed to win. He pitched five innings — the longest any starter has gone this postseason. He pitched 4 2/3 scoreless innings in Game 2 of the ALDS with Detroit and two scoreless innings in Game 5. The Guardians needed Boyd to pitch at least five innings, because with games scheduled for Oct. 18 and 19, Vogt had to be conscious of not overworking his bullpen. “Our guys have all gone three in a row at one point or another throughout the year, so we’re available to do that,” Vogt said before Game 3. “Obviously we know we need to win today, but we also have a lot of games left in this series, so we’re going to continue to be mindful of how we use guys, but we also need to get the win.” The Guardians used six relievers in innings 4 through 9 in Game 3. Pedro Avila pitched a scoreless ninth and got credit for the win.