In Game 1, Anthony Rizzo was suspiciously eliminated in the ninth inning when Oswaldo Cabrera came in at first base for the final three outs. It was the veteran first baseman’s first game since breaking two fingers on September 28. He had shown some good hitting, going 1-for-3 in the game, but there were concerns about a possible re-injury. Aaron Boone assured fans in his postgame with reporters after Game 1 that Rizzo “was just there physically and emotionally late in the game.”

While Boone said he expected to see him back in the lineup for Game 2, Rizzo expressed some uncertainty after the game, saying he wanted to wait and see how he felt the next morning. Well, he not only ended up playing Tuesday night, but also produced two crucial hits for the Yankees to take a 2-0 series lead in a less-than-pretty 6-3 victory. Rizzo went 2-for-4, scored a run and hit a double that would lead to an insurance run via a rightfield error.

In his first at-bat in the second, with Anthony Volpe on first, Rizzo was able to rip this liner single up the middle, which was 107.1 mph off the bat, to set up an end-of line-up rally to help ignite.

He was eventually brought home with a sacrifice fly by Aaron Judge to establish an early 3–0 lead, giving Gerrit Cole some breathing room as he would struggle in his later innings.

When Rizzo came on in the sixth inning with New York leading 3-2, the situation quickly flashed from a golden opportunity, with two runners on and no outs, to just one runner on and one out, thanks to a pickoff by Jazz Chisholm Jr. second base. Despite the deflate, Rizzo was able to produce the biggest play – according to Wins Probability Added – of the game. He turned on a slider to smash a liner that just broke down the right field line:

Rizzo didn’t get credit for an RBI, as right fielder Will Brennan was fouled when he bobbled the ball while trying to get it. The hit came at a key momentum-shifting moment, as the Guardians had continued to threaten breakthroughs on offense, similar to what they did in the final games of their ALDS, while the Yankees struggled to put runs on the board against the fierce bullpen of Cleveland.

Unfortunately for the storyline, but fitting with the game’s theme of sloppy play from both teams, Rizzo also made an error on the base paths that inning, getting caught too far from the bag after a pitch was slightly away from catcher Austin Hedges. Nevertheless, that double ultimately provided all the run support the Yankees ultimately needed, as the bullpen delivered another strong performance.

With the majority of the team’s wins this postseason feeling like they came from great pitching rather than hitting, we saw two other worthy Player of the Game candidates last night: Gleyber Torres, who went 3-for-5 hit to score two runs, and Judge, finding his groove at the plate, made good contact for his sacrifice fly and then hit a blast to center for a two-run home run in the seventh inning for the team’s final two runs. However, Rizzo gets the nod with the old-school mentality he brought to the series by pushing through the pain and executing quality at-bats. He even gave the kind of athlete quote that is cliché but still gives even the most cynical fans chills before a big October series.

“It’s just pain,” Rizzo told reporters before Game 1. “It’s temporary, and the 50,000 people in the stands and the adrenaline and what’s at stake will outweigh the pain I’ll feel. This is what you play for. The clock is just ticking on my age and (I’m) getting older. You just never know when you’ll ever get another chance to play for a pennant. You can’t take any of this for granted.”

After that double in the sixth inning, he probably forgot about the pain in his fingers for a while.