The Bronx had a little bit of everything Monday night. A Guardians starter losing his mind on the mound in the 2nd inning, a Hall of Fame radio voice throwing elbows at a Yankee on a national TV booking, Zack Hample doing Zack Hample things in the right field seats, and Paul Goldschmidt continuing his quiet rebrand from 'why is he taking ABs from Ben Rice' to 'thank god this guy exists.'
Start with Cantillo. The kid was barely 25 pitches into his outing, the scoreboard read 0-0, and he was already getting walked back from the edge by teammates. Jared Carrabis did what Jared Carrabis does and dropped the punchline.
Cantillo coming unglued in the 2nd inning with the game still scoreless.
Meanwhile up in the radio booth, Guardians legend Tom Hamilton was working the broadcast and decided he'd seen enough of the Jazz Chisholm media tour. Jazz hit the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon recently, which is a fun bit of celebrity for a guy currently slashing his way through a .239 season — a detail Hamilton was happy to point out on the air.
Hamilton: 'Pretty amazing he got on that Jimmy Fallon show batting .239.'
Cleveland actually grabbed the lead when Kyle Manzardo got a hold of one off Cam Schlittler and sent it into the right field seats — directly into the glove of Zack Hample, the most polarizing souvenir hunter on planet earth. Yankees fans somehow ended up high-fiving the guy over a Guardians homer, which is the kind of thing that only happens at Yankee Stadium.
Hample snags the Manzardo 2-run shot and gets mobbed by Yankee fans in the stands.
The Yankees punched back, and the man doing the punching was the 37-year-old first baseman everyone was ready to bench in April. Goldschmidt put one into the seats for a 2-run shot, then drove in another run an inning later to flip the game to 4-3. With Stanton on the shelf, Eric Hubbs summed up the vibe shift on the Goldy signing better than anyone.
Goldschmidt's 2-run homer off Cantillo and the self-aware narrative flip from skeptic to believer.
Add it all up — Cantillo melting, Hamilton firing, Hample grinning, Goldy raking — and you got the kind of Monday night baseball game that has no business being this entertaining in early June. The Guardians came to the Bronx looking like a problem and instead got a full Barstool plotline dropped on their heads.