The Guardians didn't just sweep the Tigers in a doubleheader on September 4 — they did it twice in the most Cleveland way possible, needing a walk-off to close out both games. Zack Meisel dubbed it "Rocctember" before either game was even in the books, and by the end of the night he wasn't wrong.
BRAYAN ROCCHIO GAME-TYING GRAND SLAM!
Rocchio's slam, a 366-foot shot the other way, erased what had been a big Tigers lead and got Cleveland back in it. He wasn't done. Leading off the ninth, batting from the other side of the plate, he hit a 405-foot walk-off homer to win Game 1 outright, 7-6. Per Elias, that made him the 6th player in MLB history to hit a grand slam and a walk-off homer in the same game — and the first since Jack Clark did it for the Red Sox in 1991. "First time in my life, yeah. I've never done that before," Rocchio said afterward.
AND NOW HE WALKS IT OFF!
Manager Stephen Vogt called it "a cool day for him," and that undersold it — Rocchio finished with 5 RBIs on the afternoon and a swing from each batter's box that both mattered. Zack Meisel, never one to skip the history lesson, dug up that 3 of the Guardians' most famous walk-off homers in franchise lore came off Tigers pitching against Jim Thome.
Three of those walkoff homers came from Jim Thome off Tigers pitching (Brian Maxcy, Todd Jones, Juan Acevedo).
Game 2 needed extras, and it needed Travis Bazzana, who'd been scuffling for most of September. Down in the eighth, he tied it with a two-run homer off Kenley Jansen's bullpen mate Jacob Waguespack. Then in the 10th, with Rocchio aboard after swiping two bases, Bazzana lined a single up the middle off Jansen himself to send Cleveland home with a 4-3 win and a full sweep.
ANOTHER GUARDIANS WALKOFF
Per Meisel, the last time Cleveland walked off both ends of a doubleheader was August 19, 1984. That's a 42-year gap closed in one afternoon, and it came at a moment the Guardians needed it — the sweep pushed them to 72-70 and kept them in the third AL Wild Card spot, still chasing a White Sox club that leads the AL Central, with Toronto sitting a game back in the Wild Card race and holding the tiebreaker. Every walk-off in September carries extra weight in a race this tight, and Cleveland just banked two in one day.