CLEVELAND – Lane Thomas hit a grand slam off Tarik Skubal and Cleveland defeated the Detroit Tigers 7-3 on Saturday in Game 5 of their AL Division Series, sending the Guardians into another postseason matchup against the Yankees.

Cleveland meets New York in the ALCS, setting up a series between two teams that have crossed paths six times before in October. They last met in 2022, when the Yankees won their ALDS in five games.

Game 1 is Monday in the Bronx.

Thomas had five RBIs for the Guardians, who were not expected to compete this season. But they won the tough AL Central under first-year manager Stephen Vogt, and Cleveland still has a chance to end its World Series title drought that stretched to 1948.

The Guardians had to take out Skubal, the frontrunner for the AL Cy Young Award, to keep things going. The southpaw had not given up a run in 24 straight innings (17 this postseason) before the Guardians tagged him for five runs in the fifth inning, tying the most he allowed in 2024.

And Cleveland did that with its familiar, scrappy style called “Guards Ball,” getting three singles — one an infield roller — to load the bases before Skubal hit All-Star José Ramírez on the left hand to drive in a run to force.

That brought up Thomas, who hit a three-run homer in Cleveland’s 7-0 win in Game 1.

The center fielder, who struggled in his first month with the Guardians after coming over from Washington in July, connected on Skubal’s first pitch and sent it just over the 20-foot wall in left center field.

When the ball landed, the Guardians’ dugout emptied and the screaming, red-clad Progressive Field crowd erupted into celebration.

“He just threw me a pitch to hit,” Thomas told TBS after the game. “To his credit, he threw me a lot of pitches that were hard to hit (in my previous at-bats).

“It only takes one.”

Thomas became the fourth player in postseason history – and the first at Cleveland – to hit a grand slam to take the lead in a winner-take-all game. It was the sixth grand slam hit by a Guardians player in the postseason and the first since Francisco Lindor in 2017 against the Yankees in Game 2 of the ALDS.

As has been the case all season, Vogt leaned on his MLB-best bullpen, which was showing some wear and tear.

After Thomas hit his home run, the Tigers threatened in the sixth, scoring a run on a Jake Rogers single and loading the bases with two outs. But Hunter Gaddis struck out Kerry Carpenter, who won Game 2 with a three-run homer in the ninth.

However, the Tigers continued to hang on, closing to 5-3 after Colt Keith’s one-out RBI double in the seventh. Eli Morgan came on for Cleveland and struckout both batters he faced.

Thomas hit an RBI single in the eighth to put the Guardians up by three, and that’s when Vogt turned to All-Star closer Emmanuel Clase, the AL’s save leader, to put the Tigers away.

Clase threw one 100-mph fastball after another and got the final six outs. When he struck out Keith on a routine grounder to first, the Guardians could finally exhale and plan for their first ALCS visit since 2016.

Skubal lost for the first time since Aug. 2, and the Tigers, who missed a chance to knock off the Guardians at Comerica Park on Thursday, ended their unimaginable late-season push in disappointment.

Out of contention in August, Detroit regrouped and redirected the season. Bolstered by some of the kids they raised from the minors, the Tigers took off and went 31-13 after August 11 to earn a postseason berth – one of three AL Central teams to make it.

They then defeated Houston in the wild-card round before meeting Cleveland for the first time in the postseason after more than 2,300 games between the franchises.

The Guardians took first place in April and never let go. Cleveland became one of the biggest surprises of the season, winning 92 games under Vogt, a former journeyman catcher who had no previous managerial experience.

Before the match, Vogt was convinced that his team was not ready yet.

“It feels like we’re going to New York,” Vogt said.

The Guardians are on their way.

This report used information from The Associated Press.