Not a lot has gone the Cleveland Guardians' way this season. This has been made pretty clear by the team's record of 10-14 in one-run games heading into Sunday afternoon.
Finally, the Guardians found themselves on the winning end of one of these tight contests thanks to the one and only Jose Ramirez.
Cleveland was down one run heading into the ninth inning. Bringing in one run seemed like an impossible task with how poor the offense has been this season. Luckily for Cleveland, the St. Louis Cardinals set up the inning for them as Ryan Helsley walked both Steven Kwan and Myles Straw aboard.
Kwan and Straw are two of the fastest runner on the team, so there's nobody else you'd want on base in this situation. There also is no one else you'd want in the box with this opportunity as Jose stepped to the plate.
He smoked a ball to the right-center gap, scoring both base runners, and won the game.
This is what Ramirez said, through his translator, following Cleveland's big win:
"It's a reminder that this is a hard game. It's not always going to come our way and this is along season and we've got to prepare because something's going to happen, positive or negative, and we have to be prepared for all of those."
Playing in so many one-run games certainly has prepared them for this moment. Thankfully this outcome was a positive one.
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