Guardians confident stepping onto larger stage

Young team eager to meet seasoned playoff foes in Rays

CLEVELAND No stranger to October’s post-season pageantry and peril, Terry Francona feels the same heading into his 72nd playoff game as he did before his first 18 years ago.

“I’ll be scared to death,” Cleveland’s manager said Thursday, only half-joking. “That’ll never change.”

He’s counting on fearlessness from his Guardians. Baseball’s youngest team, which used a baseto-base approach to overtake Minnesota and Chicago and win the AL Central running away, gets its first taste of the playoffs Friday when the Guardians open the best-ofthree wild-card round against the Tampa Bay Rays.

This is unfamiliar territory for many of Cleveland’s players, most of whom were in the minor leagues during the strange 2020 season when the team, then known as the Indians, was eliminated in the first round by the New York Yankees.

Nothing has fazed the Guardians this season, and Game 1 starter Shane Bieber, who will oppose Tampa Bay ace Shane McClanahan, doesn’t expect his teammates to be rattled while stepping onto a larger stage.

“It seems that nothing has been too big or too small for us this year,” he said. “I really don’t expect too much of a change within the clubhouse or on the field.”

Cleveland and Tampa Bay played six times during the regular season, with the Guardians going 4-2. Last week, they met in a three-game series all decided by one run, with two games going to extra innings.

The post-season has become almost second-hand for the Rays. Tampa Bay is making its fourth consecutive appearance, but Rays manager Kevin Cash, one of Francona’s closest friends, isn’t convinced his team’s familiarity playing fall ball gives his team a distinct advantage.

“Their guy has a lot more postseason experience than me,” Cash said with one of his many playful digs at Francona. “I think the culture Tito creates over there, whatever lack of experience they have, his players are going into this situation with a confident mindset.”

Attendance on the rise

Even with homer chases by Aaron Judge and Albert Pujols, Major League Baseball wasn't able to coax fans to ballparks at pre-pandemic levels this season, though attendance did jump substantially from the COVID-19 affected campaign in 2021.

The 30 MLB teams drew nearly 64.6 million fans for the regular season, up from 45.3 million in 2021, according to baseball-reference.com.

This year's numbers are still down from the 68.5 million who attended games in 2019, which was the last season that wasn't affected by the pandemic.

Games speed up slightly

The average time of a nine-inning major league game dropped for the first time since 2018, likely helped by the introduction of the PitchCom electronic device to signal pitches.

The average this season was three hours, three minutes and 44 seconds, the commissioner's office said Monday.

The figure declined from a record 3:10:07 last year.

MLB's average was 2:46 in 2005 and 2:33 in 1981.