Brayan Rocchio Plays Hero as Guardians Walk-Off Tigers
Brayan Rocchio's grand slam and walk-off solo home run help the Cleveland Guardians take down the Detroit Tigers in the series opener.
Video Transcript
The last thing the Cleveland Guardians needed on Friday was to get down big after two frustrating losses earlier on this week.
Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened in game one of Friday's double header is the Detroit Tigers ended up scoring four runs in the first inning and tacked on one more in the second.
Even though the Guardians were able to get one of those runs back, they still had a tall mountain to climb to get back into the game.
In fact, Baseball Savant had the Tigers at a 91% chance of winning after the fourth inning based on the score and how things were going at that point.
Thankfully for the Guardians, Brian Rocchio came around, Rocktember, however you wanna call it.
Brian Rocchio had one of the best games of his career.
He ended up tying the game up in the bottom of the fourth inning-- fifth inning with a grand slam to tie it up at six runs each, and then later on in the ninth inning, he was responsible for the walk-off solo home run to give the Guardians the victory.
And overall, this was just a great game for Rocchio, obviously because of the home runs, but also because he has not been swinging the best bat as of late.
He had a great start to the season.
Unfortunately, after the All-Star break, he's kinda found himself in a little bit of a slump at the plate, and it was something that Steve Vote even acknowledged after the game as well, and he said that the team has been asking so much of Rocchio.
He was really locked in at that number nine spot, but then they started moving him all around the lineup with some of the injuries.
But now he's back in that nine spot, and he's back in that home where he said he feels comfortable in earlier on the season, and that really did show on Friday afternoon.
In fact, he even made a little bit of Guardians franchise history as well.
There's been five players in Guardians history who have been a nine hole hitter, have had two home runs, and recorded more than five RBI in a game.
The last time it happened was back in 1994 by a guy name of Manny Ramirez, who obviously is a Cleveland legend as well.
So Rocchio putting himself in a little bit of franchise history with this game too.
I think the larger thing to look at, though, is that Rocchio really has had a history of coming up for the Guardians in big moments, especially as we get closer to the playoffs and into the postseason as well.
Last season, it was obviously the walk-off home run that sent the Guardian to the playoffs in game 162, and he eventually had a home run in the postseason as well.
So if the Guardians end up making it back to the playoffs, this is certainly a highlight that people are going to look back on for years to come.
And if anything, it was just a great moment for Rocchio, the Guardians, and the city of Cleveland
