The Cleveland Guardians were never supposed to win this World Series, or any World Series.
That doesn't mean they couldn't have done it, but it's a key point. One team wins the championship, and 29 don't. A small-market ballclub like Cleveland? The Guardians aren't even supposed to have a shot.
For most of this season, they looked like that low-payroll group that they are on paper. They were eight games under .500 in early July after a 10-game losing streak. At one point, they trailed the Detroit Tigers by 15.5 games in the AL Central. No team in the history of the sport had made up such a deficit to win a division.
And now the season has ended, and they didn't win the World Series. In one way, that's all there is to this story.
But that ignores so many brilliant chapters.
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The Guardians made up that deficit. They had a 10-game winning streak, part of a stretch of 17 wins in 19 games.
They won close games. They got heroics from unlikely sources. They called up players who, out of nowhere, contributed to one of the craziest turnarounds Major League Baseball had ever seen.
They found plenty of reasons to party. There was the Brayan Rocchio walk-off homer to win the division, and then the Rocchio homer to even the AL Wild Card Series with the Detroit Tigers at a game apiece.
They clinched a playoff spot on a walk-off hit by pitch by one of those new guys, C.J. Kayfus. Partied there, too.
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They were so hot that manager Stephen Vogt told the players to keep the clubhouse music rocking postgame even after their few losses in September. No reason to spoil the vibes.
That's the interesting thing about following the Guardians. They often seem to be based in good vibes, magical vibes, slightly unbelievable vibes.
They feel a bit like an island of misfit toys, sometimes centered around a star or two like Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan. But who are these other dudes?
Something about wearing a Cleveland uniform has a way, season after season, of turning them into unlikely winners.
And so even though there were no rings at the end of this season, the Guardians put together yet another year to remember. And that's almost as special.