Playoff Rocchio and Jim Herrin

The Cleveland Guardians will live to play another day. Today, in fact. At 3:08pm EST, back at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio. At lot of that is thanks to this guy: Brayan “Playoff” Rocchio.

[Photo credit: this one is stolen from Andre Knott’s October 1 Instagram Stories]

This kid, wow, he is really a story. He started the season as our sometimes-shortstop (splitting time with Gabriel Arias) before his untimely string of errors and poor plate performances got him reassigned to AAA Columbus, one step down from the Major League club. It took a late-June injury to Arias (sprained ankle) for Rocchio to get his chance to return -- and he didn’t let the opportunity slip away. His defensive was back to being excellent and his offense steadily improved. When Arias was finally ready to return, manager Stephen Vogt took a gamble and moved Roak over to second base, the position is mentor and former teammate Andrés Giménez had earned a Platinum Glove at just two seasons ago. Sure, there were some early challenges learning a new infield position during the regular season at the Major League level. But the team was kind of puttering along, probably giving Rocchio more of a leash to explore his potential at his new defensive role -- and what he did was get really good at it really fast. For awhile, he was about as clutch as it got at the plate, too, regularly driving in runs. But like most of the Cleveland offense, that lacked consistency, even if his defense continued to sparkle.

On the last day of the regular season, though, Brayan Rocchio clubbed a 3-run homer in extra innings to secure Cleveland a walk off win over the Texas Rangers, a game the team didn’t need to win but they wanted to win -- for the fans in attendance, for themselves as they prepared to celebrate a Central Division win, regardless of the game’s outcome. It’s just better to celebrate after winning, though, right? Brayan Rocchio sure thought so as he delivered a home run we won’t soon forget.

Roak has a long history of really turning it on during the playoffs. It happened in other levels and other leagues before making his ascendance to Major League Baseball -- it happened last October when he became our most reliable bat during Cleveland’s postseason run, which took the team all the way to Game 5 of the American League Championship Series last fall. I was in the ballpark when the first full-ballpark chant of “RO-KEY-OH!” flared up -- resulting in a Brayan Rocchio hit. Fans started bringing signs to the ballpark that read “BUILD THE BRAYAN ROCCHIO STATUE NOW!” And while it’s lovely to think about this sweet, quiet, unassuming kid from Venezuela who takes pride in doing his interviews in English with a statue at the doorstep of the great Cleveland cathedral, Progressive Field, it’s also a bit absurd. Roak? A statue? Really? Does he have Hall of Fame numbers?

How many would have said the same thing about this upstart named José Ramírez when he was at the same point in his career?

The future stardom of Brayan Rocchio starts now.

To breakdown what happened yesterday, George Valera hit a solo homer for Cleveland in the first inning and Javy Baez singled to drive in a Tigers run in the fourth. Initially, that same play was credited with two runs scoring but some overturned calls on the field put it back to a 1-1 tie.

It stayed that way until the bottom of the 8th when Brayan Rocchio stepped up to the plate and mashed a solo homer into the right field seats. That homer set off a Guardians offensive outburst as Steven Kwan followed with a double and then scored on the next play when Daniel Schneemann doubled him home. The Tigers intentionally walked José Ramírez two have runners at first and second. Bo Naylor then crushed a three-run homer to make the score 6-1. The Tigers did make it interesting in the bottom of the 9th -- but ultimately, that 6-1 score proved to be final.

All thanks to the sparkplug, Playoff Rocchio.

In an October 1st piece for The Athletic, Zack Meisel wrote:

Also tucked away in this article is a brief detour from the beast that is Playoff Rocchio to talk about another “unlikely hero” from yesterday’s game: lefty reliever Tim Herrin. Tim, like Roak, has had an up and down season that also sent him back to AAA for a few stints. He rejoined the club in recent weeks and Vogt has sent him out there in high leverage spots where he’s delivered. But this is the postseason. Yesterday could have been the Guardians’ last game of the season if they’d lost. And Vogt brought Timmy in with one down and two runners on base in the seventh inning. And what did Tim Herrin do?

Apparently, he turned into Jim Herrin.

To wit // also from Meisel’s article:

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[full article // requires a subscription to read: www.nytimes.com/athletic/6681604/2025/10/01/cleveland-guardians-brayan-rocchio-october-pressure/ ]

Without Tim, er, Jim Herrin’s gutsy performance in the 7th, who knows how this game could have turned out?

This is what makes October baseball so damn special -- heroes emerge, often from unlikely places. And I couldn’t be happier for Brayan or Timmy. When we needed them, they stepped up big time. That’s the power of the playoffs -- fans remember these postseason heroics for generations. Both of these dudes are quietly (quietly?) etching their names into the story of Cleveland baseball.

And those of us who are here to witness it get to say we remember when.

The series will end today, one way or the other. Either the Tigers or the Guardians will advance to face the Seattle Mariners while the other packs up their lockers until “next year.” I feel good about my team today and am excited to see them take the field once more. One pitch at a time, boys.

Oh, and before I go? It’s worth noting that today’s Tiger start, Jack Flaherty, made a bold claim during last year’s postseason when Cleveland eliminated the Tigers by winning the American League Division Series. Flaherty, at the time, was pitching for the eventual-World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

Well. Alrighty then. I’ll leave this sort of thing in the hands of the baseball gods and conclude, per usual, with the only words that matter:

May the best team win. May that team be from Cleveland. Amen.

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