A Cubs fan’s guide to the American League Championship Series

… as the series heads into the weekend

Every now and again baseball has this way of reminding you that what can appear for hours, or even multiple games, as a slow sport with a predictable cadence, is really a veneer for some of the most exciting and dramatic moments in sports. Last night in Cleveland it looked like the Guardians would once again be thwarted by the Yankees when their closer, Emmanuel Clase came in and promptly turned a 3-1 lead into a 4-3 deficit after back-to-back home runs from Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton [VIDEO].

It was a soul crushing moment in Cleveland for a Guardians team that was already down two games in the series. After the Guardians failed to score in the bottom of the eighth with runners on, it felt like the air was sucked out of the stadium. But Lane Thomas and Jhonkensy Noel had other ideas and this call by Tom Hamilton is electric [VIDEO].

It honestly reminded this Cubs fan of another electric late-inning game tying home run that took place approximately eight years ago in Cleveland.

But that home run just got Cleveland back into the game. They’d need more heroics to seal the victory. David Fry came up with a runner on in the 10th, and you can just watch Cleveland thrust themselves back into a series that frankly looked over with two swings [VIDEO].

It’s a bit of a strange situation from a cheering perspective for Cubs fans. After all, the man who absolutely should have been a Cub for life, 2016 World Series Champion Anthony Rizzo, plays for the Yankees. So does former Cubs starting pitcher, Marcus Stroman. There’s no one on the postseason roster for the Guardians who played for the Cubs at the MLB level.

But the Yankees are a funny team to root for unless they’re already one of your favorite teams. Sort of like the Red Sox, Dodgers and Cardinals. It’s a hard bandwagon to jump on because chances are you either love the team or hate it. There’s not a lot of room in-between.

Additionally, Cleveland’s history of not quite winning a championship in decades tugs at my heartstrings in a way no other team currently in the playoffs can possibly approach. There couldn’t be two more different teams by payroll with the Guardians starting the season with the 28th ranked $93,333,629 payroll and the Yankees sitting as second-ranked $303,322,047 payroll that I find inherently appealing. Fun fact — of the four teams left in the MLB Postseason, three have the highest payrolls. Only the Guardians stand in the way of the payroll behemoths.

Game 4 will start tonight at 7:08 CT in Cleveland. We can only hope it will be half as wild of a ride as last night’s banger: