St. Louis Cardinals at Cleveland Guardians: Final Score & Recap

The Cleveland Guardians walked off the St. Louis Cardinals 4-3 at Progressive Field on May 28, 2023, completing a comeback that hinged almost entirely on a single swing in the ninth inning. Cleveland entered the night as a slight favorite, with the DiamondIQ model's estimate placing the Guardians' pre-game win probability at 55 percent. St. Louis had taken a 3-1 lead into the ninth, and that margin held firm through eight innings of mostly quiet baseball, with the Cardinals' Andrew Knizner providing the biggest offensive moment before that point when he homered off Hunter Gaddis in the fifth inning, a swing that shifted win probability 12.7 percent in St. Louis's favor.

The ninth inning unraveled quickly for Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley. Amed Rosario's flyout to lead off the frame looked like a step toward a Cardinals win, costing Cleveland 14.9 percent in win probability, but what followed erased all of that and more. José Ramírez laced a walk-off double off Helsley that swung win probability by an extraordinary 82.1 percent, turning what had been a near-certain Cardinals victory into a Guardians celebration. It was the single most decisive plate appearance of the game by a wide margin and pushed Ramírez to a game-high plus-86.5 percent WPA with a RE24 of plus-1.8. Cleveland had also threatened in the eighth, where Gabriel Arias contributed a double off Drew VerHagen worth plus-17.2 percent in win probability, though Will Brennan's ground into a double play in that same inning set Cleveland back 43.8 percent and nearly closed the door entirely.

On the pitching side, Génesis Cabrera earned the largest win-probability contribution among pitchers at plus-43.8 percent by inducing that costly eighth-inning double play from Brennan, while Jordan Hicks added plus-26.6 percent and Xzavion Curry contributed plus-17.6 percent in keeping St. Louis in the game deep into the contest. Steven Kwan rounded out Cleveland's top offensive contributors with a plus-14.9 percent WPA and plus-1.0 RE24, and Paul Goldschmidt led St. Louis's positive contributors at plus-13.0 percent WPA. The DiamondIQ model's estimate closed at 100 percent for Cleveland, a reflection of just how completely Ramírez's double settled the outcome.