Guardians manager Terry Francona turned to Trevor Stephan plenty of times over the course of 2022, but none of those calls showed how much trust he has in his 26-year-old reliever more than bringing him in to prevent the Yankees from running up the score in a do-or-die Game 5 in the ALDS.
Stephan was called, as he had been so many times this year, to be a multi-inning clutch reliever. The Guardians were trailing, 4-1, and already embroiled in a bullpen game. They would still end up losing as they couldn’t muster the runs for a comeback, but it wasn’t the fault of Stephan, who recorded seven outs and bridged the gap between Sam Hentges and James Karinchak almost flawlessly.