Baseball’s final four teams hail from New York, Los Angeles, New York … and Cleveland.

The Guardians overcame Cy Young favorite Tarik Skubal and the never-say-die Detroit Tigers to win 7-3 on Saturday afternoon.

As a result, Cleveland advances to the American League Championship Series against the top-seeded New York Yankees.

When asked about facing Skubal in Game 5, Jose Ramirez said, “You should ask him how he feels about having to face us.”

THE STRATEGY

Cleveland manager Steven Vogt employed an interesting strategy to counteract Skubal. He only allowed starter Matthew Boyd to pitch two innings, even though he struck out five batters.

Vogt then brought Cade Smith to pitch in the third, when he usually doesn’t show up until the seventh.

He struck out three more hitters, so the idea of building a Frankenstein’s Monster to match zeroes with Skubal worked until the fifth inning.

Kerry Carpenter put Detroit on the scoreboard with a single to score Trey Sweeney.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Guardians strung together three singles to start the most important rally of the season.

Jose Ramirez came to the plate with the bases loaded and … got hit by a pitch to tie the game. That ended Skubal’s streak of 28 scoreless innings.

THANK YOUR LOCAL GM

Lane Thomas hit a grand slam to left field, and the place went insane. It’s time to thank Guardians general manager Mike Chernoff for acquiring Thomas, who overcame a slow start and has been dynamite for the last six weeks.

Detroit crawled back into the game with an RBI single from Jake Rogers and a run-scoring double by Colt Keith.

But the Guardians restored the four-run lead on RBI singles by Thomas in the seventh and Brayan Rocchio in the eighth.

MAKE MY HEART SING

“Wild Thing” came over the loudspeaker, and Emmanuel Clase emerged from the bullpen to put the final bolts on the monster.

Could he pitch two innings and protect a 7-3 lead? Yes.

The party was on at Progressive Field, and the Guardians are heading to The House That Ruth Built (v. 2.0).

FUN FACTS

Steven Kwan hit .524 in the Tigers series. He has a 10-game playoff hitting streak, tying Kenny Lofton for the franchise record.

The Guardians storm into the final four with a total salary of $109 million. The Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees are all over $300 million.

Game 1 is set for Monday at 7:38 p.m. on TBS, truTV, and Max.