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.
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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.
