CLEVELAND — It wasn’t three-on-none. But it was about as close as you can get.

Not just because Luke Weaver Lane Thomas led 0-2 with two outs in the ninth and the Yankees had a two-run lead. But because of the way the Yankees had turned the game the inning before. Not just back-to-back home runs from Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. But one of the game’s best closers, Emmanuel Clase.

So it would be as exciting a win as any in the Aaron era – Judge and Boone. One trick against three-and-oh this way. The threshold of the World Series.

Then Luke Weaver gave up a two-run homer to Jhonkensy Noel after allowing a full-count Thomas double. Tie score. Then Clay Holmes gave a two-out, two-run walkoff shot to David Fry in the 10th. And if you will, close your eyes, Yankees fans, this all happened on the Yanks’ 20th anniversary, on the brink of beating the Red Sox in the ALCS, and then Dave Roberts stole a base and caused what would be the greatest comeback in MLB history. Boston won four in a row, ended The Curse and won its first championship since 1918.

Yes, these Guardians are not those Red Sox. But these Yankees are not those tough champion Yankees. And now it’s not three-none. It’s two games to one, the Yankees are still ahead, but both teams have bullpens on fumes, potentially opening the door for funky things.

So the Yankees had all the right sounds coming from their choir – heartbreaking loss, but believe they are good at turning the page and they will, etc. But what Weaver failed to close, what the Yankees failed to close, opened up clearly did not want to see it open. – an underdog who suddenly has a better fighting chance. An underdog that The Curse may not have, but has won a title for the longest time of any franchise (since 1948).

“I really felt like I let the team and myself down,” Weaver said. “At the end of the day, it feels a little devastating.”

The Yankees didn’t play well, but as is often the case when they didn’t play well technically in the long season, their penchant for long balls seemed to save them.

Four wide balls failed at first base, two by Jon Berti contributed to runs and two were by Anthony Rizzo, who was brought in for defensive reasons. Jose Trevino started at catcher for the first time this postseason and Cleveland went 3-for-3 in steals from him. And Trevino, after driving in the first run in the second inning, continued the Yankees’ inexcusable baserunning blunders by being picked off.

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When he did, the Yanks were up 1-0 and five of their nine batters had reached base against Matt Boyd, who needed 39 pitches to record four outs. After Trevino’s pickoff, it took Boyd 36 pitches to retire 10 batters in a row – another lefty to humiliate the Yankees.

That allowed Cleveland to gain momentum, thanks to the set-up work of Cade Smith, Tim Herrin and Hunter Gaddis in Clase, who came in on a Juan Soto walk with two outs in the eighth.

Clase allowed two home runs in 74 ¹/₃ innings in one of the most dominant regular seasons ever. But then he gave up a huge three-run shot to Detroit’s Kerry Carpenter to lose Division Series Game 2.

Still, Clase came in at 100 mph, Judge got ahead 0-2, went 1-2 and then Judge hit a liner to right for a tying two-run home run. Judge was hitless in his previous 23 postseason at-bats with two strikes, going 3-for-66 in those spots without allowing a hit out of the infield and had not hit a two-hit home run in the playoffs since doing so. did against Boston in Game 2 of the 2018 Division Series.

Stanton then had an even better at-bat, going down 0-2, making an error on three of the next four pitches and then launching a go-ahead shot that certainly felt like it was a winner. The Yankees even added an insurance run in the ninth, somehow thriving on yet another baserunning blunder, this one by Anthony Volpe.

But Weaver and Holmes have pitched in every playoff game. And Weaver faced Thomas for the third time in three games. He regretted not putting Thomas away as the key striker, and Noel’s equalizer that followed. An inning later, Holmes dropped a sinker to Fry and it was the Guardians who won on the strength of three two-run home runs.

“Obviously it sucks to lose like that, but it’s kind of a classic game and we’re ready to get going tomorrow,” Aaron Boone said.

Tomorrow is Friday, Game 4. The Yanks will start Luis Gil, who last pitched on September 28, against Gavin Williams, who last started on September 22. Both closers, Clase and Weaver, have been demystified and both teams are faced with the likelihood of I need a lot of depleted bullpens. It increases the chance of the unexpected in a series where the Yankees were so tantalizingly close to a three-oh lead.

One stroke away from one win and their first World Series appearance in 15 years.

And now?