Cleveland Guardians who got everything out of everybody on the roster | Michael Arace

In the movies, Willie Mays Hayes scores from second on a bunt, and the Indians beat the Yankees to win the division. Also in the movies, Charlie Sheen. The movies are fantasy.

In real life Tuesday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, Darth Vader chopped young Luke Skywalker in half with a lightsaber. The Yankees beat the Guardians and moved on to the American League Championship Series to play the Houston Astros, who were known for their old Tequila Sunrise uniforms until they started cheating.

There are conflicting emotions as these playoffs move forward. Like, unless you’re from somewhere near the Bronx or grew up as the kind of weak-spined kid who liked whatever team was winning, then you hate the Yankees; but, if you’re a baseball fan with a shred of decency, you can’t forgive the Astros for cheating, and you put an asterisk on their 2017 World Series title. Who do you root for?

You can root for the Astros manager, Dusty Baker, a man with a sterling reputation, who was applied as a disinfectant after the cheating scandal rocked the game. You could pull for ol’ Dusty finally win the Big One, or you can watch the San Diego Padres and the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS.

With such a backdrop, it was that much more of a letdown to see the Cleveland Guardians eliminated. Baseball’s youngest team had the third-smallest payroll in MLB (around $82 million, compared to the Yankees’ $265 million, according to Spotrac.com) and, bless them, the Guards played their hearts out all season.

The Guardians won 92 games, ran away from the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins to win the AL Central, swept Tampa Bay in a wild card series and took the Yankees to a deciding Game 5 in the ALDS. Damned rain delays.

Cleveland fans still feel cursed by a rain delay in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, and now they have months to ponder the postponement of Game 5 against the Yankees. They will wonder what would have happened if the game was played Monday night, as scheduled, when Yankees starter Nestor Cortes was unavailable.

With one more day of rest, Cortes was brilliant and the Yankees fairly cruised to a 5-1 victory. Cleveland’s starter, Aaron Civale, didn’t make it out of the first inning. This naturally opened up Guardians manager Terry Francona to questions. Why didn’t he play his ace righthander, Shane Bieber in the biggest game of the season?

I’m with Tito here. He had been saying for days that, if it came to it, he was not going to start Bieber on three days’ rest. He just wasn’t going to push Bieber, who had a rotator cuff injury last year, was still managing his way through the injury this year and had never before pitched on three days’ rest, healthy or otherwise.

“Nobody wants to win more than we do, but right is right,” Francona said after Game 2 was postponed, “That one is off the table.”

Francona’s decision will be discussed until spring training. Cleveland’s baseball team has lost 11 elimination games since 1997 – including six of them in 10 years under Francona. The franchise last won the World Series in 1948, when the state of Israel was created.

Despite the crushing weight of this history, Guardians fans, by and large, know they have the best manager in the game. The 2022 season was another exhibit. It started with Jose Ramirez’s request for a long-term contract at the end of spring training, continued with a bunch of kids slapping the ball all over the lot, and taking every extra base, and ended uncharacteristically – without a late-inning comeback victory.

In his final postgame presser, Francona was asked whether his low-payroll team had made some kind of statement for next year, and he said:

“I have no idea what next year is going to look like. I just got done talking to a bunch of guys that are brokenhearted in there, because we care. They’ve shown that, although we didn’t get to our final destination, it’s a pretty good year. And a lot of things happened that I don’t think a lot of people were expecting. Where it goes from here, that’s up to us. We’re going to have to take it and do better.”

If the Guardians’ miserly owners can find the hydraulic device that opens their wallets, they can truly aspire. They have excellent starting pitching, a solid bullpen and a raft of plucky, young field players. They have a minor-league system that is regularly producing talent. But it’s obvious they need another thumper besides Ramirez, who, in a world that doesn’t include freaks like Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani, might be the AL MVP.

They need a bat, because bunts don't score runners from second base in real life, not in this century. They need a bat behind the plate, at first base, in the outfield and/or at designated hitter. Then, they can more seriously think about ending a 75-year drought, and be even more lovable.

marace@dispatch.com

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: After losing to Yankees, Cleveland Guardians owners need to buy a bat