Leading in the playoffs is all about balancing immediate wins and long-term sustainability. Not Ultra Long term, mind you, but managing a bullpen for a seven-game series is harder than simply pushing the same buttons every day until you win or lose. ALCS Game 4 featured three significant bullpen decisions. The managers chose differently; They both paid the price. In the end, the Yankees prevailed over the Guardians in a 14-pitcher, three-and-a-half-hour, 14-run shootout. But a few early decisions shaped the course of the game and are the focus here tonight.

No rest for Cade Smith

Cade Smith has been one of the best relievers in baseball this year. If he wasn't playing in the same team as Emmanuel Clase, we'd call him a lockdown closer. Instead, he is a dominant fireman who can step in whenever Stephen Vogt needs him to freeze the opponent. And Vogt needed him very much. He played in all five games of the ALDS. He managed the first game of that series, but then had to face the bulk of the Yankees lineup in Game 2 and Game 3.

He pitched almost every day, which hurts. He faces the same bullies over and over again, which hurts. But what are you going to do if you don't use your best option against a team that has stacked two MVP-level bats in an otherwise navigable lineup? Juan Soto had already hit a home run and the Yankees were leading 3-2 heading into the top of the sixth inning. Smith came for the third time in four days.

In an ideal world, Vogt would give Smith a day off. But the needs of the present outweighed the utopian ideal of sensible calm, at least in Vogt's eyes. When it comes to a diminished Smith or a rested arm further down the hierarchy, Vogt has chosen Smith at every turn. Friday was perhaps one too many times.

Smith's fastball averaged two ticks less. His location was scattered; He walked Soto on five pitches and then gave up a laser beam single to Judge. Without his usual late fastball life, he appeared to be reaching for the strike zone. You don't want to be there against a collection of elite thugs that you're seeing for the third time in a row.

Smith has already faced Giancarlo Stanton twice in this series and threw him four fastballs in five pitches. He came back with four straight fastballs tonight, and Stanton was far from fooled. He took one for a shot, swung through another, took one for a ball, and then got one he liked. You know what this means for Stanton:

The other boys

That blast gave Aaron Boone a 6-2 lead, and he had to make an immediate decision: use his normal circle of confidence brokers or try to grind out a win while resting his top players. He chose the latter approach, an extremely sensible decision. Luke Weaver had pitched in every single Yankees playoff game and thrown nearly as many innings as Smith; Clay Holmes also played in every game. Boone was probably looking for an excuse to give his guys a break and had a four-run lead in the fifth qualifying session.

Jake Cousins ​​pitched a clean inning. But Boone got greedy and tried to stretch Cousins ​​for a second frame. His reward? Two baserunners and no outs and a panicked call to the bullpen for Holmes, who didn't have the night off after all. That didn't work at all. Holmes had no feel for the strike zone. He left everything. He hit a slider to David Fry that confused Fry so much that he thought it was strike three. He threw a strike to José Ramírez, who fired it to right for a run-scoring double. And then he left his sinker up the middle to Josh Naylor, who ripped it to the wall to bring home two more.

This negated the advantage that the Stanton home run had given the Yankees, making it a 6-5 ball game. Boone didn't have many great backup options either; The next man out of the bullpen was Mark Leiter Jr., who was added to the playoff roster today only as an injury replacement. But that's exactly what Boone ended up with after Luis Gil's short start and the quick rotation of substitutes behind him.

Leiter looked like a guy on the fringes of the playoff roster. On the third pitch he threw, he gave Jhonkensy Noel a warning lane throw. After escaping the inning, he gave up a leadoff double to start the next. Then he couldn't get to the first base line quickly enough with a two-out squibber. He tried to recover with a last-minute flip to Anthony Rizzo, throwing it right through Rizzo's legs for the pesky leadoff double. It was 6-6, new ballgame, and the Yankees had given up that four-run lead in the name of protecting two relievers, one of whom still pitched.

There is no rest for Emmanuel Clase either

Okay, this decision wasn't that difficult. The game was tied heading into the ninth inning, so Clase came on to make sure it stayed that way. He gave up two home runs last night, and he has already given up more home runs and earned runs this October than he did in the entire regular season. But what should he do other than pitch here?

Like Smith, Clase didn't have it. Both his speed and position were lacking. Rizzo and Anthony Volpe each hit center cutters at 98 mph for singles to lead off the ninth inning. This must feel like a walk in the park compared to Clase's normal arsenal of 100 mph cutters on the edges of the plate. After a steal, Clase produced one of those 100 mph darts, but Brayan Rocchio couldn't get a handle on it, and he wouldn't have stopped the run from scoring anyway. Gleyber Torres added an insurance run with a line-drive single. For the second time in as many days, Clase didn't have enough mustard to finish the game. And that was it. The Guardians threatened in the bottom half of the inning but were unable to score a run. Tommy Kahnle made a nerve-racking save. Both bullpens were destroyed, but New York is in slightly better shape and has another game tomorrow. I wouldn't bet against Smith and Clase's performance, even considering how poorly they fared today.

knick-knacks

– Both starters had a long layoff – 25 days for Gavin Williams and 19 for Gil. They both looked rusty and Williams was clearly only out for 10 batters; Vogt had no interest in Soto and Judge seeing him twice. Gil lasted a little longer, but he couldn't regain his command, which was always a weakness and especially after so much free time.

– There were two mistakes in this game, and I'm not sure which was worse. In the bottom of the fourth, Austin Hedges made a perfect sacrifice throw…with no one on base, against a pitcher who had walked him up last time out. Gil looked completely shocked as he put the ball in play for an easy out. Jazz Chisholm Jr. might have outdone Hedges by hitting a no-out bunt to Smith just before Stanton's home run. You have a struggling opposing pitcher on the ropes, his fastball is two ticks down, and your cleanup hitter hits a ball despite the platoon advantage? At least Hedges made it in a low-debt situation; I was shocked by Chisholm's decision, especially considering that a strikeout-or-homer guy like Stanton is next in line.

– Vogt pinch hit for left-hander Daniel Schneemann – with left-hander Will Brennan. Then he pinch-hit righty Jhonkensy Noel for Brennan — against a right-handed pitcher. It might be the strangest sequence of pinch hits at one spot in the lineup that I've ever covered. I'm sure there was a pitch shape reason for the first substitution, and the Noel substitution was based on Leiter's reverse platoon splits, but man, strange.

– Kahnle threw 18 pitches in the ninth inning, and all 18 were changeups. It's a spectacular pitch, but really, zero Fastballs? I wouldn't want to throw it again tomorrow, especially not against the same batters.