CLEVELAND — Every foul ball felt like a countdown to takeoff.

In the top of the 10th inning of a tied ALCS Game 5, Juan Soto was entrenched in the kind of fight he had won so many times before. Hunter Gaddis was on the mound, the newest – and ultimately last – Cleveland reliever, charged with taming a Yankees lineup with a downright overwhelming amount of firepower.

Two batters earlier, Alex Verdugo had hit a ground ball to second baseman Andrés Giménez who appeared to be set for an inning-ending double play. But short stop Brayan Rocchio couldn’t handle Gimenez’s hurried, underhand toss. An action that could have resulted in two zeros did not result in a zero. It was a mistake at the worst possible time by two of the best center infield defensemen in the world, and it left Gaddis with two outs. After striking out Gleyber Torres, it was Soto who stood in Gaddis’s way of keeping the game – and the season – alive for the Guardians.

Gaddis went to Soto with soft stuff, mixing sliders and changeups in different locations in hopes of getting some whiff or weak contact. Soto fought off each offer, gradually tilting the at bat in his favor as he gathered information and turned the pressure on Gaddis to attack with something straighter.

On the seventh pitch – and the first fastball of the at-bat – Soto connected cleanly. But the ball was hit at an ultra-steep 37-degree launch angle, sending it flying up into space and spinning back into the night sky as everyone on Earth watched and waited. For six and a half seconds, the entire ballpark – and an enthusiastic crowd of Yankees fans watching around the world – wondered if Soto had just hit a home run to send New York to the World Series for the first time in fifteen years.

As if there really was any doubt.

As one of only three active Yankees to have been to the World Series, joining Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rizzo, Soto has charted this path before. He understands what it takes to make a deep October run, and he has regularly delivered the biggest moments of the biggest games. Still just 25 years old — he turns 26 on Friday, the day the World Series begins — Soto has already produced a career full of heartbreaking home runs and clutch hits.

And on Saturday in Cleveland — when that towering ball finally landed behind the center field wall to give New York a 5-2 lead it wouldn’t relinquish — Soto produced perhaps his most memorable swing yet.

About 90 minutes before Soto scraped the moon with his long ball, Giancarlo Stanton — himself a legendary October performer — hit a very different kind of home run, the kind Stanton usually hits: a ridiculous laser beam that practically teleported out of his bat. to the final landing site, far beyond the outfield fence.

For more than five innings, Guardians ace Tanner Bibee had been cruising, having answered the call for short rest and laying the foundation for a quality start when his team desperately needed one. The Guardians were hoping for length from Bibee in Game 5 after the previous two games stretched their bullpen to the limit.

As a result, Bibee was given the opportunity to face the top of the New York lineup for the third time to open the sixth inning. After Torres and Soto reached base to start the frame, Bibee coaxed a double play from Aaron Judge to reduce the threat and get within one out of escaping unscathed.

Upstairs the dangerous Stanton equalized.

Stanton spun through a slider and a changeup and fell into a quick 0-2 hole. However, the next three throws were nowhere near the zone. With the count full, catcher Bo Naylor went out hoping Bibee could get Stanton to chase a slider. But the slider didn’t slide enough. And against Stanton – as we’ve seen several times this month – such a mistake has devastating consequences.

Kaboom. Away. If Soto’s homer took what felt like forever to come down, Stanton’s was the exact opposite. As soon as contact was made, the outcome was determined. The ball was clearly vaporized and sent down a line from home plate to the left field stands to tie the game.

Stanton had struck out in his previous two at-bats against Bibee, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. As manager Aaron Boone explained before the game when asked what makes Stanton different, Stanton is exceptional at applying what he learns from each successive at-bat against the same pitcher.

“He’s just incredibly disciplined, his approach, his process, how he studies guys,” Boone said. “One thing we’ve talked about a lot over the years…he, more than most, really benefits from seeing pitchers over and over again. So I think he processes it when he’s confronted with people… He’s shown in his career that he benefits from it pretty much more than anyone else.

“There’s something he does when he gets comfortable with people, besides being physically very gifted.”

It is these physical gifts that allow Stanton to hit the ball harder than any player in the history of this game. His Game 5 homer left the bat at 117.5 mph. Since Statcast began measuring batted ball speed in 2015, no player has produced more home runs with an exit velocity of at least 110 mph than Stanton with 22. His teammate Judge is a distant second with 10.

“He can hit harder than anyone else, so the physical nature of what he does is different than pretty much anyone in the world,” Boone said.

While Stanton’s swing merely tied the game, it injected a level of confidence and energy into the Yankees dugout that would last all the way until Soto put them ahead. It was also the swing that confirmed what was probably already the case: Stanton was the ALCS MVP. His four home runs in the series pushed his career total to 16 in just 36 games in October – eight of which came against Cleveland. Only Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Randy Arozarena have a higher career postseason slugging percentage than Stanton.

Six years before the Yankees made a blockbuster deal to acquire Soto, it was Stanton who was acquired via trade in the hopes that his big bat could help New York return to the promised land. So much has happened in the years since, with a slew of other trades made in search of the roster that could finally break through. It’s those repeated near misses that continue to motivate the Yankees to go big on superstars when they become available, with Soto — whose impending free agency is this winter’s $500 million question — the latest example.

While Soto has managed to deliver the goods in his first year as a Yankee, Stanton has had to wait. But now they’re teammates, and in one game they combined for two swings that, as general manager Brian Cashman put it when presented with the AL championship trophy, put the Yankees back where they belonged.

“I didn’t expect it to take this long,” Stanton said during the postgame party in the Yankees clubhouse. “But we’re here now, and this is exactly what I came here for.”