SEATTLE -- José Ramírez extended his career-long on-base streak in a loud way, drilling a game-tying home run in the top of the fifth inning Saturday night. That set the tone for the Guardians to take a late lead, but they couldn’t make it last, ultimately falling, 4-3, in walk-off fashion to the Mariners.
Taking a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth, Emmanuel Clase gave up a leadoff single to Dominic Canzone, then walked Miles Mastrobuoni. After a sacrifice bunt from Cole Young, manager Stephen Vogt elected to walk the bases loaded, but Clase's wild pitch let the tying run come home. Two batters later, Jorge Polanco singled up the middle to end it.
"We got into a tough situation, had to put some people on to set up the double play,” Vogt said. “I thought everything went well, we made the adjustments. Just didn’t get the result.”
The result turned out to be unprecedented; prior to Saturday, the Guardians had won 124 consecutive games when leading after eight innings, dating back to Sept. 7, 2023, against the Angels.
"That’s a tough one tonight,” Vogt said. “That’s a tough loss, but we’re going to rebound.”
The ending took the headlines away from Ramírez, who’s making a strong case for his fifth straight All-Star nod.
Ramírez -- who saw his hitting streak end at 11 games with an 0-for-3 night on Friday -- struck out in his first at-bat against George Kirby on Saturday and grounded out in his second, seeing 15 pitches total.
Coming to the plate with two outs in the fifth for his third crack at the Seattle righty, Ramírez worked another deep count before pouncing on Kirby’s 2-2 sinker at the top of the zone, curling it around the foul pole with an exit velocity of 105 mph.
"He’s one of the best hitters on the planet,” Vogt said. “That was a great at-bat. He had multiple great at-bats tonight, even one of the punchouts was an unbelievable at-bat. José just continues to do incredible things.”
It was Ramírez’s 123rd career game-tying or go-ahead home run, putting him in a tie for first in franchise history with Jim Thome.
It also ticked the six-time All-Star’s on-base streak -- already a career high and the longest this year in the American League -- up to 39 games.
He’s a game away from becoming the first Cleveland player to reach a 40-game on-base streak in one season since Thome reached 55 in 2002.
"That’s just no surprise,” second baseman Daniel Schneemann said. “He hits every pitch well. He’s on every pitch, he’s always ready. Every single hitter on this team tries to do what he does, but he does it the best.”
Tanner Bibee dug himself an early hole, needing 20 pitches to record his first out -- a sacrifice fly that made it 2-0 Mariners.
A hit batter prompted pitching coach Carl Willis to come out to the mound. Whatever Willis said worked; Bibee struck out Rowdy Tellez and got Canzone to ground out on the first pitch he saw.
It would be three innings until Bibee allowed another hit, though he had to work around traffic thanks to three walks, another hit batter and a disengagement violation. He let three runners reach base in the fifth, but got a crucial out at second on a pickoff play, then rolled a grounder to end his outing on 104 pitches.
"I thought it was an excellent job by Tanner,” Vogt said. “That’s pitching when you don’t have anything, that’s battling when you don’t have your best stuff. For him to get through five and keep us where we were, I thought that was an excellent job by him.”
Matt Festa, Hunter Gaddis and Cade Smith all worked scoreless frames after Bibee exited; Smith struck out two in a 1-2-3 eighth, finishing his night by blowing a career-high 99.6 mph past Tellez, less than 24 hours after Tellez hit him in the brim with a 106.6 mph comebacker.