None of that mattered once Bibee settled in. Cleveland's price barely moved into first pitch, and by the middle innings it didn't need to.
Steven Kwan led off the game with a home run, and Cleveland never really let up from there. Travis Bazzana drove in 3 runs, including a 2-run homer in the sixth that turned a comfortable lead into a laugher.
Bibee's last two September starts had cost him 10 runs over 8.1 innings combined, the exact rough stretch the preview flagged as Cleveland's biggest rotation worry. He answered it directly — 6.2 innings, 2 earned runs, 7 strikeouts — his best turn of the month against the team he needed it against most.
Ryan lasted just 4 innings, allowing 4 earned runs on 7 hits with only 1 strikeout — a total reversal from the 7-strikeout outing that had him pegged as the sharper arm on paper. Emmanuel Rodriguez, who'd sparked Minnesota's offense with a homer in his first career at-bat, went quiet at 1-for-4 with a strikeout this time around.
Cleveland tacked on 3 more in the ninth as Minnesota's bullpen leaked down the stretch, and the win pulled the Guardians within a half-game of the White Sox atop the AL Central while padding their wild-card cushion over Toronto. "If MIN dubs this somehow I'll do 100 backflips," one poster in the Polymarket chat wrote holding Minnesota — the backflips never happened. Cleveland hosts Chicago next in a series that could decide the division.