• ESPN News Services

Sep 23, 2025, 08:49 PM ET

CLEVELAND — For a frightening moment, the AL Central race hardly mattered.

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    “Definitely really scary,” Kwan said. “For David to even try something like that [bunt], that’s just who he is. Selfless kind of guy, and especially in a position like that, he’s a tough guy. Thankfully he had some humor when he came up, but you don’t want to see a guy that’s been with you pretty much the whole year.

    “Obviously energy-wise, just who he is as a teammate, he’s meant so much to us as a team. It’s really scary, but thankfully he had some humor coming off the field, so hopefully we get some good news.”

    Following the incident, Skubal threw a wild pitch to George Valera, who replaced Fry, allowing Cleveland to score. Skubal also had an error – he inexplicably tried to make a blind throw to first between his legs – and was also called for a balk in the sixth inning as the Guardians rallied for three runs to take a 3-2 lead without hitting a ball out of the infield.

    With its 16th win in 18 games, Cleveland caught Detroit atop the division after trailing the Tigers by 15½ games on July 8. The Guardians were still 12½ games back on Aug. 25, but have gone 17-5 in September.

    The Tigers, meanwhile, have dropped seven straight and 10 of 11.

    “I feel like we’ve been this way for a couple of series now,” catcher Dillon Dingler said. “It’s not quite pressing but we definitely feel some of the pressure and we’ve got to mitigate it. We’ve got to eliminate it. We’ve still got to find ways to stay loose, focus in and hone in on what we need to do and go out there and do it.”

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.