It took until the League Championship Series for the first extra-inning game of the 2024 MLB playoffs.
The Cleveland Guardians were down to their last out in Game 3 of the ALCS when slugger Jhonkensy Noel stepped to the plate as a pinch-hitter and crushed a game-tying, two-run homer off New York Yankees reliever Luke Weaver.
The mammoth home run off the bat of "Big Christmas" sent Progressive Field into a frenzy and forced extra innings.
After the Yankees went scoreless in the top of the 10th, the Guardians came up with yet another two-out, two-run homer.
This time around, David Fry took Yankees All-Star Clay Holmes deep to give the Guardians their first win of the series by a score of 7-5.
What are the MLB extra-inning rules in the playoffs?
The 10th inning of Yankees-Guardians Game 3 wasn't played the same way as regular-season extra innings.
That's because MLB uses an automatic runner rule for extra innings in the regular season. If a game is tied after nine innings, each half-inning begins with an automatic runner on second base starting in the 10th. The runner is whichever player recorded the final at-bat in a team's previous turn at the plate.
But extra innings in the playoffs don't incorporate automatic runners, regardless of how many innings are played. Rather, the game proceeds as normal into extra innings until a winner is determined.
