The Cleveland Guardians are riding a plunking all the way to the postseason.
Cleveland successfully clinched a playoff berth on Saturday with a 3-2 victory over the Texas Rangers. The Guardians entered play needing either a win or a Houston Astros loss to punch their ticket to October.
With the score tied at 2-2 in the ninth inning at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio, the Guardians had the bases loaded after a two-out walk to Johnathan Rodriguez followed by a Kyle Manzardo single and an intentional walk to Gabriel Arias. Cleveland outfielder CJ Kayfus then came up to the plate with a chance to be the hero for his team.
It turns out though that Kayfus didn’t have to do too much. The second pitch of the at-bat by Rangers pitcher Robert Garcia ran in on Kayfus and plunked him on the right arm. As such, the winning run came home, and the Guardians clinched their playoff spot on an extremely unusual walkoff hit-by-pitch. Here is the video.
THE GUARDIANS WALK IT OFF TO CLINCH THEIR SPOT IN THE POSTSEASON pic.twitter.com/IdNcLUrhun
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) September 28, 2025
The pain didn’t even seem to register for Kayfus, who immediately put his arm up in the air and chucked his bat away to get the celebration started. Indeed, that will forever go down as the RBI that sent the Guardians to the 2025 MLB postseason.
Cleveland had an absolutely remarkable stretch over the last several weeks as they were just 69-70 on Sept. 4. But they have since gone on a blistering 18-4 run and still have a chance to inconceivably win the division away from the Detroit Tigers (who are also headed to the playoffs regardless) in Game No. 162 on Sunday. That is not bad at all for a team whose biggest storyline just a couple of months ago was the gambling scandal involving multiple of their players.
