CLEVELAND – A 2-0 lead in Game 5 of the American League Division Series hung in the balance when Erik Sabrowski came on with the bases loaded, two out and Munetaka Murakami up in the sixth inning. Relying on nothing but fastballs, the lefty from Edmonton quickly got ahead 0-2, missed twice to even the count and then, after telling himself to stop messing around, beat the slugger on a heater middle down.
This is how he celebrated.
“I kind of went crazy,” Sabrowski said with a grin.
A few innings later, all he could do is marvel at the way Cleveland Guardians teammate Cade Smith of Abbotsford, B.C., reacted after he struck out Tristan Peters, another Canadian, to seal the series-clinching victory over the Chicago White Sox. Smith recorded the game’s final five outs, four on strikeouts — after appearing in each of the four previous games, no less — and simply clapped his glove before walking down to shake catcher Patrick Bailey’s hand.
No biggie, as if it was May whatever in Kansas City.
“He struck out four to close out the DS when were down 2-0 and you couldn't tell,” Sabrowski said in awe. “I don't know how he's so calm. I guess if you expect to do those things, the emotion won't really come out. But it's crazy watching him for the last 2½, three years. No matter what situation he gets put in, he's just, OK, I'm going to go get the out. And he's not, like, lackadaisical about it. He's not, like, oh, I'm too cool for this. He knows how important those moments are and he just continues to excel in them.”
In that way, Sabrowski is trying to take pieces from the meticulous way Smith trains, preps and pitches and apply them himself, with the right-hander in turn pouring right back into his teammate. Though different in demeanour and disposition, they’ve bonded over where they’re from, who they play for and the way they pitch, becoming a formidable and vital bullpen duo for the Cleveland Guardians, who are tied 1-1 with the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series.
Game 3 goes at 1 p.m. ET Thursday — moved up from 6 p.m. ET because of forecast rain — and Gavin Williams, who threw 5.2 shutout innings in that Game 5 after closing out Game 4, starts against Griffin Jax. The two Canadians are likely to, at some point, find their way into the contest.
“There are definitely some similarities you can draw between him and myself, being fastball-heavy pitchers,” said Smith. “There are some things I've been able to share, difficulties I've gone through that hopefully I can spare him from. But there's a real beauty in learning how to pitch to your strengths and also refine the rest of the arsenal around it, so that it actually becomes even more of a strength, rather than continuing to force it past guys when everyone in the world knows it's coming. There's hopefully a little more finesse that keeps hitters off-balance and there's that evolution as a pitcher that I think he's done a good job of. And then trying to continue learning and developing in that regard, as well.”
That mindset is precisely why Sabrowski calls Smith the athlete he can most learn from, even if he isn’t sure he’ll ever maintain the same level of stoniness that’s a trademark of his teammate on the mound.
Still, “I feel like in terms of the pitches and thinking about how to attack a hitter, I think I can be there with him.”
Neither had a straightforward path to the majors.
Smith, 27, was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 16th round of the 2017 draft, went to the University of Hawai’i at Manoa instead, had his junior season wiped by the COVID pandemic and wasn’t selected in the shortened five-round draft that summer. Afterwards, several teams pursued him and he picked the Guardians because he felt their pitching program would help him max out his abilities.
“I'd be lying if I said we knew it would progress exactly like this, but if I knew then what I know now about Cade, there's not another human being I would bet on more to make that a reality,” said Chris Antonetti, the Guardians’ president of baseball operations. “He was a priority guy for us after the 2020 draft to try to sign and it was very competitive. We spent quite a bit of time on trying to put our best foot forward and explain who we are as an organization because he's very thoughtful, incredibly deliberate.”
Smith debuted in 2024 and in the three seasons since he’s become an all-star in 2026 and logged 223 innings in 219 games with a 2.26 ERA and 314 strikeouts. The Guardians have played 20 post-season games during that span and he’s pitched in 18 of them, allowing only five runs with 31 strikeouts in 21 innings.
“One of the first things that I was learning in 2024, watching guys in the bullpen who've done it for a lot longer, is that they have a very condensed, refined list of the things that they need to do to be ready and they're not going to waste their time trying to add things, and they are not going to deviate from that list,” said Smith. “They've got the boiled-down, bare-minimum things that they need and they're going to cling to that basically with a death grip. I've got the same kind of mentality. I've refined things I know are super-important to me. I'm not going to stray from them. And I'm also going to be very, very careful about anything that I'm doing at this point of the year.”
A late-bloomer, the 28-year-old Sabrowski is establishing himself after an even bumpier journey.
Undrafted out of high school, he hoped to find a spot on a college roster somewhere and after a gap year, made his way to Cloud County Community College in Concordia, Kansas, with plans to climb his way to a four-year program from there. Instead, after striking out a school record 117 batters in 66 innings over 12 games, while also batting .355 with 11 homers, he instead got picked by the San Diego Padres in the 14th round of the 2018 draft.
But he blew out his elbow shortly after that, lost the 2020 season to COVID as he was recovering and then needed a second elbow reconstruction in 2021. The Guardians picked him in the minor-league phase of the Rule 5 draft that December, helped him build back up and after a few other stops and starts, he debuted late in the 2024 season.
He’s pitched 90.1 innings over 101 games since with a 1.99 ERA and 137 strikeouts, while appearing in 13 post-season contests.
“I didn't think I was ever going to do this, so this is pretty cool,” he said. “Every year I just kind of break another tier. As a rookie, I got to pitch in the LCS and that was awesome. It was throwing in, not mop-up roles, but lower-leverage roles. Last year, up and down, I got some leverage, some not. Then this year, it was carve out a role, I can pitch the eighth inning, I can pitch the ninth, that's another tier of being a leverage reliever.”
All alongside Smith, whose locker is two stalls over from his in the Guardians clubhouse, two Canadians playing bigger and bigger roles during the regular season and now the playoffs.
“It's fun to be able to share that and have some of those inside jokes and be, in some cases, cornered by the rest of the guys,” said Smith. “Even with growing up in different parts of Canada, being able to have things to relate to, things as simple as, ‘Oh man, it’s 25 degrees out,' and everyone else goes, ‘What?’ And he goes, ‘Pretty nice day.’
“Having that to share is nice.”
For them, and even more so, for the Guardians.
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