C.J. Kayfus was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the ninth inning, scoring Petey Halpin as the Cleveland Guardians clinched an American League playoff berth with a 3-2 win over the visiting Texas Rangers on Saturday night.
Rangers closer Robert Garcia (4-8) intentionally walked Gabriel Arias to face rookie Kayfus with two outs in the ninth, but he struck him on the right arm with his second pitch. Halpin was pinch-running for Johnathan Rodriguez.
Cleveland (87-74) locked up a wild-card spot but is also tied with the Detroit Tigers for first place in the Central Division. The Guardians would win a tiebreaker and the teams are assured of playing each other in the first round of the postseason.
Cade Smith (8-5) worked 1 2/3 innings and was the winner. The Rangers (81-80) need one victory to ensure they would finish with a winning record.
Rangers slugger Adolis Garcia, who had been 1-for-24 since coming off the injured list, belted a towering solo homer in the fourth to tie the game at 2. The 433-foot drive landed midway up the bleachers in left-center field.
Rodriguez gave the Guardians a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first with a two-run homer to right-center against Jacob Latz, just his second long ball in 98 career at-bats.
Texas got on the board three batters in when Josh Jung hit an RBI double to score Michael Helman, who had hit a leadoff double. The run off Joey Cantillo was the seventh scored in the first inning off Cleveland starters in the last three contests.
Cantillo struck out eight over 5 2/3 innings, giving up two runs on three hits without a walk. Latz allowed two runs on five hits and no walks in 5 1/3 innings, striking out six.
The Guardians had a golden opportunity to go ahead in the fifth when Gabriel Arias led off with a triple that bounced past left fielder Cody Freeman. Latz stranded him there by striking out Jhonkensy Noel, Brayan Rocchio and Austin Hedges.
Texas had the potential go-ahead run thrown out at the plate in the eighth as Dylan Moore was on the second half of a delayed double-steal that ended the inning.
The sellout crowd of exactly 36,000 pushed Cleveland over 2,000,000 in attendance for the second straight season, something it hadn’t accomplished since 2007 and ‘08.
