MLB playoffs: The Yankees advance to the World Series thanks to a late home run by Juan Soto

For the 41st time in team history, the New York Yankees will take part in the World Series. It took 10 innings, but two big hits from the captain's co-stars sealed a 5-2 win in Game 5, and the Yankees will wait to see how the NL fares.

The New York Yankees made the difficult decision to give up a large portion of their pitching depth last December. The only guarantee was a year from Juan Soto, who, despite his track record all over the world, didn't exactly have the best 2023 in San Diego. It was an extremely risky decision.

And it's the ultimate high-reward decision.

In the tenth inning, on a cold evening in Cleveland, arguably the greatest 25-year-old hitter in baseball history threw a ball over the centerfield wall of Progressive Field. It was a perfect shot from Juan Soto, four consecutive foul balls and a long battle with Hunter Gaddis. When it was over, when the ball landed, the Yankees punched their ticket to the World Series:

Juan Soto has already hit a legendary playoff home run and led Justin Verlander deep into the World Series at 19 years old. This year could be bigger than that, with the weight of 15 years without a pennant and looming free agency. Touch them all, Juan, you may never hit a bigger home run in your life.

Carlos Rodón, like Clarke Schmidt, was strong enough in both starts before faltering in the fifth. He struck out six hits against a single walk, which is promising, but as I said in the game thread, limiting the hits against the Guardians is crucial. Five base hits, including two doubles, led to a 2-0 deficit and traffic before Boone walked Mark Leiter Jr.

I won't blame Rodón, he struck out four of the first six batters he faced and kept the ball in the stadium. The big thing was all the excitement in the fifth inning, where Andrés Giménez hit a double and was killed off by Steven Kwan. David Fry managed to apply even more pressure with a single and that was it for Carlos. With the amount of stress put on the bullpen this week, seeing Rodón in the sixth inning really would have been a plus, but that wasn't to be.

I told my friend at the start of the sixth that this was THE inning for a comeback. At the top of the list is Bibee, who is seeing him for the third time. If the Yankees were going to get anything done, it would be here. In fact, Torres and Soto both had base hits, but Aaron Judge's double play dashed many hopes.

And then we got the original example of Giancarlo Stanton, so to speak.

These were the first two pitches, both swinging shots. That first slider in particular melted me, as Bo Naylor fielded the ball in the left batter's box while Bibee was on set. A terrible, terrible swing decision from Stanton, and then Naylor almost went to the gut to set up the second throw.

But this is Giancarlo Stanton. He'll make you tear your teeth out and then hit a game-winning tank. He was the biggest pennant winner with four home runs in the Championship Series and a well-deserved pick for ALCS MVP.

It's an individual award, not a collective award, but one could argue that the Yankee bullpen deserves its flowers too. Four substitutes kept the Guardians off the scoreboard, although they gave up but weren't quite as overloaded as they were. For all the hand-wringing over Luke Weaver's Games 2 and 3, the righty and love of my life was tasked with logging two innings and that's exactly what he did, on the mound when the last fly ball landed – who else? — Juan Soto's glove.

It took so many different formulas, strategies and aspirations to get the club back to this point. That this journey began ten months ago with a bombshell trade is the stuff of MLB The Show. That this trade has paid off time and time again, and most of all tonight, is the stuff of Hollywood. But it's real and there's only one stop left on this journey: the Canyon of Heroes as World Series Champions for the 28th time.

Attention now turns to the NLCS, as a Dodgers win means the Yankees face their old rivals from Brooklyn on the West Coast on Friday night for their first Fall Classic showdown with LA since 1981. A Mets comeback means the first World Series Game The Yankees, who have competed since 2009, are in the seedy Bronx for a rematch of the 2000 Subway Series. Either way, we've got all the coverage you need here, starting with a start time we've worked out.

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