00:00It would be really nice, okay?
00:01I'm beyond grateful that the Guardians are up 2-1,
00:04beyond happy with the way they played today.
00:06It'd be nice if I wasn't just like, I don't know,
00:09running through fingernails watching these games
00:12if I didn't feel sick to my stomach
00:13and I was going to have heart palpitations
00:14every time I had to watch them play.
00:16It would be a good sort of switch of pace.
00:19I also understand this is how the Guardians are going to play.
00:21And again, I'm happy with the way they played today.
00:24Petey Halpin was electric.
00:25I mean, did he maybe take it a step too far?
00:29Or he might have taken it a step too far.
00:31Maybe a little bit too high of a celebration.
00:32That's all right.
00:34I mean, this is, what, Petey's first postseason,
00:37if I'm not mistaken.
00:38I don't think he was on the wildcard roster last year.
00:42So his first postseason, dude hit a go-ahead homer.
00:47He felt the moment.
00:49I don't know what else I really want from you
00:51other than you just to sit there and feel the moment.
00:53And yeah, you get to be big dog that day, all right?
00:56You get to do whatever you want when you hit the homer.
00:59And I'm very pro.
01:00Like, go out there and celebrate the way that you want to.
01:03Go out there and, hey, if you want to launch a bat 600 feet into the air,
01:06go ahead and launch a bat 600 feet into the air.
01:08You do whatever you want.
01:10It might have been a step too far, but I'm here for it.
01:13And it's because the vibes are so high.
01:15It's because this team does feel like at any given moment the game is theirs.
01:21And I'm not going to say that they're going to come out and sweep anybody
01:23and obviously aren't sweeping the Rays this series,
01:26as the Rays have already taken a game.
01:28But, like, this team just never feels like they're out of it.
01:31And they are living in the moment, which is, I think,
01:33something that's really important for as young of a team as we're watching,
01:36for this team to be riding the momentum that they're on.
01:40You have to be in the moment.
01:41You have to be living the way that this is right now.
01:44And it's going incredibly well.
01:45So, yeah, when things continue to fall your way,
01:49you see the guys start to get more energetic, more energetic.
01:52And it's something really nice.
01:54And, like, starting to score three runs today,
01:56it was by no means a ridiculous offensive output.
02:00It was just a good performance.
02:02Flat period.
02:03They didn't go out there and knock the cover off the ball.
02:06They had six hits today for their three runs.
02:09But at the same time, this was kind of a game that I turned around
02:12and was like, this one felt good at home.
02:16Like, for the team that we've talked about has not played great at home all year.
02:19For the team that we started this playoff series against the White Sox,
02:23and they came out flat as ever, even in game five,
02:27relied solely on a two-run shot from Jose Ramirez to win a game two to nothing,
02:31relied heavily on their pitching staff.
02:34It just felt like a game where, again, the bats were not lively.
02:37And the pitching staff certainly helped carry a little heavy weight
02:41for the Guardians today because you do look away,
02:45and it was two runs for the Rays, and they did it on a whopping, what, three hits?
02:49Don't take two.
02:50Maybe they'd take two out of three at home.
02:51But I feel like when they walk into that place,
02:55it's not just walking into an offense that has no life.
03:01Walking into a team that is going to have, you know,
03:0435,000-plus people roaring behind them,
03:08but not give them anything to cheer for at the exact same time.
03:11Like, I feel like we've walked away from that through one simple performance,
03:15which is really nice.
03:17And, like, this game obviously today gets bumped up to 1 o'clock,
03:20and it feels like you still get 30,000 fans out there.
03:24The official attendance was 30,000-101.
03:27For a game that got moved up five hours on a Thursday,
03:31directly to make them play while everybody is supposed to be in work on,
03:34you know, about 30 hours notice,
03:37it got moved yesterday around that time.
03:39So it wasn't like this was some massive change that everybody saw coming.
03:43Like, if you had work,
03:44pretty much weren't going to be able to go and use your tickets.
03:46That was just the reality of it.
03:48Or you're going to have to make some last-second adjustments to your plan,
03:50maybe use a sick day, maybe call in sick.
03:53The boss of the little lie, yeah.
03:55Sorry.
03:56You know, it really came down with the sniffles
03:57as you're heading out to progressive.
03:58Like, still to have 30,000 people show up to that game is incredible.
04:05And I think you just walk into this, and I think the players feel it, right?
04:08I think there is an obvious, you know, we want to show up for the fans.
04:12And I do think that, you know,
04:13home field advantage makes a legitimate difference.
04:16And so far in the playoffs, especially the Guardians,
04:20it's been incredibly hard to see that difference.
04:23It's been incredibly hard to buy into,
04:26oh, you know, the Guardians really feel the impact of being at home
04:28and being comfortable.
04:31This felt like one.
04:32Again, I'll go back to Petey's homer.
04:35Like, the bat flip, letting the crowd roar,
04:39letting the crowd buy into the moment, feel the impact of the moment.
04:42You could tell Petey was just kind of riding the vibes of what was with him.
04:47The crowd erupts.
04:48Petey gets to walk it off, basically play everything cool,
04:51and launch the bat.
04:52Like, that is a moment that I think you look back on,
04:56and Guardians fans are going to remember.
04:58Like, Cleveland fans are going to remember the Petey helping bat flip
05:01from a game that won them game two of the ALCS.
05:03And it's weird because you live in this moment, you're active in it,
05:08and you're like, oh, it's a huge homer.
05:10And think back, that's such a cool moment.
05:13It's not one that you think back on and you go, oh, I'm going to remember this,
05:16you know, 30 years from now.
05:19But I think that is the type of moment you kind of remember 30 years from now.
05:23Right?
05:24I mean, we talk about Guardians ALCS appearances all the time,
05:27whether they win or lose.
05:29I mean, I've heard several callers today on Afternoon Drive.
05:32You guys obviously chiming in throughout the week.
05:34We've been mentioning 2007 ALCS, you know, everything that they can get into.
05:40Everything that they get.
05:41We're calling back to 95, 97.
05:43Like, everybody remembers the moments.
05:46And this will be one that it feels like is remembered.
05:48Okay, Guardians finally break through at home,
05:50finally get some runs.
05:51And in a close, you know, contested game where Gavin gets nine strikeouts,
05:55you're keeping the Rays offense at bay.
05:57Petey's the one who breaks the seal
06:00and blows the top off the game and ends up being the difference.
06:04And again, maybe reactionary of me a little bit just being here today,
06:08but I do think that it makes a little bit of a feeling there.
06:12But I want to hear from you guys.
06:12216-474-0092.
06:14We got a lot to talk about tonight, Guardians-wise,
06:17but I want to know whether or not today swayed your opinion
06:20on the Guardians' home performance.
06:22Can they actually show up in progressive field?
06:25And I think some of the guys talked this today.
06:28Speaking of Petey, he spoke, obviously, after the game.
06:31And not necessarily, you know, the fan base and all the impact they had,
06:35although a lot of the guys did talk about that.
06:37Petey was asked about the energy, the feeling in the clubhouse
06:41during these type of moments.
06:42It's awesome.
06:43You get a feed off of each other, right?
06:44You know, when anyone does their job and gets the job done
06:47and puts us in a position to win, like, everyone on the team's juiced.
06:50It's not about me or, like, that home run,
06:53but it's just the fact that we're winning and we keep rolling.
06:56Yeah, like, and I do think, like, even with losses, right,
06:59you lose game two, it'd be easy.
07:02I don't think for teams to completely fall out of it.
07:04It was a 1-1 series.
07:05You're still going to be locked in.
07:06You're still going to have excitement.
07:07But to have this sort of momentum killer of,
07:10oh, we had an opportunity with Parker Messick on the mound
07:13to go up 2-0 and to kind of kill some of the vibes in the clubhouse.
07:17I have to earn a lot of those back.
07:20And for a team that came into the postseason flat,
07:22for a team I think energy-wise came into the postseason with almost none of it.
07:26They looked like they were dead in the dugout.
07:29They were not cheering.
07:31The White Sox were putting on a, I mean,
07:33basically a cheerleading fest in their dugout.
07:35They were amped up.
07:36They were screaming.
07:37And it felt like the Guardians were, you know,
07:39sitting there watching their own funeral.
07:41To what has now felt like a lot of the flip through the last three games
07:44of the White Sox series to the beginning of this series,
07:47this looks like the team that's having fun.
07:49And sure, winning helps a lot of that.
07:52And taking, what, five of your last six games that you've played
07:54certainly helps out with that a ton.
07:57But just being able to sit back and see this team,
08:00even in moments where they're losing, kind of ride that wave,
08:03I think also goes a long way.
08:05Just to be invested in the game, to go back to having fun,
08:08I think that is part of what makes this team fun to watch.
08:11They're not a team that's launching the ball over the wall every three seconds.
08:14They are not living and dying by the long ball,
08:16though, for some reason, are hitting plentiful home runs in the postseason.
08:20But you see this team play hard,
08:22and you see them kind of capture that energy of playing the game as a kid
08:26and having the joy for the game.
08:27And I think that's what makes this team likable.
08:30Maybe not nationally.
08:31I don't know how many people are rooting for the Guardians
08:33across the national landscape right now.
08:35I think you probably have more people rooting for the Tampa Bay Rays
08:38for whatever reason.
08:39But for a team to be that young and just kind of,
08:43I don't even know that it's not understand the moment
08:45because you have guys who explain it.
08:46You have the Jose Ramirez's, you have Stephen Kwan,
08:49a bunch of guys who have been here in these type of moments before,
08:52Hedges, Nathaniel Lowe.
08:54So I don't think it's like a you don't understand the magnitude
08:57of the moment you're in type of feel.
09:00But it is just a, hey, we're going to go out there and play loose,
09:02play our brand of baseball, and we're just going to enjoy doing it,
09:06win or lose.
09:07We're going to give everything we have in this series
09:09and kind of be happy walking away from it that you left everything there.
09:14That's huge for this team.
09:15They have to leave everything out there.
09:16And a lot of times this team does not get to play lazy baseball.
09:20This team does not get to rely back on Jose Ramirez or Chase Delauder
09:25and just assume one of those guys is going to come through
09:27and get the big hit for them.
09:29Everybody has to step up at some point.
09:31And again, like we've talked a lot about Petey
09:33in this kind of opening segment,
09:34but he is the example of that today.
09:38It's been really easy to look back and be like,
09:40oh, Jose saved us at the homer,
09:42chased the water, got things going at the solo shot.
09:44Like you count on those guys.
09:46You need those guys to be doing that.
09:48It has been the Patrick Bailey's who stepped through
09:51and your catcher in the lineup who was not great offensively for the year,
09:55launching a couple of homers and hitting for average for some reason,
09:58but to kind of get the party started.
10:01It's Petey, the least likely guy maybe outside of Stephen Kwan
10:05to launch a two-run homer to really put the bookend on the game.
10:11And Petey's the one who shows up.
10:13But I want to hear from you guys.
10:14Again, 2-1-6-4-7-4-0092.
10:16Guardians, obviously, winners over the Rays today, 3-2.
10:20And if their performance today sway you on what you think the Guardians are at home,
10:24because it did it for me a little bit.
10:26Like the nerves I had riding into game three,
10:28what this team would look like, I get it.
10:30It's six hits, it's three runs, but it did silence it a little bit.
