Junior Caminero homer guts the Guardians crew in the Cave

The Guardians went into Monday night facing elimination, and OhioTate, Mad Dog and Dom went live in the Cave to ride it out. Most of what followed was suffering.

Barstool Baseball

@StoolBaseball

Guards had 1st and 2nd nobody out They dont score

Here's what was at stake. Tampa Bay led the ALCS 3-2 and hosted Game 6 at Tropicana Field, 1 win away from the World Series. Cleveland needed to win twice in a row on the road. The offense kept getting runners on and then getting nothing out of it, and Tate was not taking it well.

Ohio’s Tate

@OhioTate

Why the fuck would Lowe run into that tag and hand them a double play? This game is depressing.

The Guards did eventually push 1 across, and the Cave went off like they'd won the pennant. That's how starved the room was. One run felt like a lifeline.

Then came the bottom of the 7th with the Rays up 3-1. Dom said out loud the thing every fan is thinking and nobody should say: "this would be brutal." Caminero swung at the first pitch he saw, a splitter, and hooked it off the left-field foul pole for a 2-run homer. It was his 1st home run of the postseason, and he stopped before he even reached 1st base to pound his chest at the crowd. The clip below doesn't show the swing. It shows the room just after it, and that's the better watch.

Barstool Gambling

@stoolgambling

Dom: “this would be brutal” *Junior Caminero immediately homers* Silencer from the Rays

Not everybody at Barstool was hurting. Gruden was all in on the kid. If you want the swing itself, plus the trot and the scoreboard going from 3-1 to 5-1, his post has it.

Jon Gruden

@BarstoolGruden

MY MAN JUNIORRRRRR!!!

The Cave has done these do-or-die baseball nights before. Back on Oct. 1, KB was already hyping one on the Yak, before anybody knew it would come down to Game 6 at the Trop.

Barstool Yak

@BarstoolYak

“Do or die baseball game. Stakes for that are self-evident.” – KB

0:44

Down 4 runs that late, Tate gave up on hoping and went to dark humor about how many outs Cleveland made on foul pop-ups. Beat writers were already calling Caminero's swing close to a pennant-clincher. If you're a Guardians fan, Dom jinxed it. If you root for the Rays, he called it.

Ohio’s Tate

@OhioTate

What’s the record for most foul ball pop up outs in a baseball game? Guardians have to have beaten it by 10+ tonight

As of that last post the final hadn't gone final. Still, 5-1 that late in a game Cleveland had to win is a hard spot to come back from. If the Guardians lose, Tampa Bay goes to the World Series, and the Cave will remember Dom's 4 words for the rest of the winter.