Tigers fans will love Emmanuel Clase's epic ALCS meltdown (but hate Guardians result)

Tigers fans are between a rock and a hard place with this current ALCS matchup. On one hand, the Guardians are Detroit's longstanding division rival, the team that kicked them out of the postseason and ended their magical run. On the other hand, the Yankees are ... the Yankees.

No matter where you've landed, there's something every Tigers fan can come back together to agree on: Emmanuel Clase is an enemy of Detroit, and any hit off of him is a good hit.

For some reason, Guardians fans started to kick up a fuss about the AL Cy Young race sometime in September. They've been insistent that Clase should win over Tarik Skubal, even though Skubal won a Triple Crown this year and has been almost universally lauded as the best pitcher in baseball, even if Clase pitched 115 innings fewer than Skubal during the regular season.

The Tigers served him and Guardians fans a fat, heaping slice of humble pie during Game 2 of the ALDS, when Kerry Carpenter hit a three-run homer off him to win the game for Detroit.

If that wasn't cathartic enough, Clase got rocked again in Game 3 of the ALCS vs the Yankees, and it was a big one. Aaron Judge hit a blazing line drive off of Clase to eliminate a two-run deficit for New York. To make it even worse for Clase, Giancarlo Stanton immediately followed to go back-to-back and put the Yankees on top.

Tigers enemy Emmanuel Clase gets another beating from the Yankees with huge Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton homers

Regardless of whether you hate the Guardians or the Yankees or both, Game 3 of the ALCS was a thrilling one. After Stanton's homer, Gleyber Torres put more distance between them with a sac fly.

But then Jhonkensy Noel came through at the best possible moment, with a pinch-hit two-run homer to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth. It didn't take the Guardians long to spoil everything for the Yankees, with another Tigers enemy in David Fry coming through with another two-run homer (and, we have to give it to him, an incredible bat drop) to walk it off for Cleveland.

Still, it was rewarding to watch Clase specifically get beaten down again. The homer he gave up to Stanton was on the slider, that same "unhittable" slider that Carpenter pummeled in Game 2. Because of Carpenter, Stanton has to settle with being only the second hitter ever to hit a home run on that pitch.

But the Guardians storming back to steal the win and turn the tides in the series? Not sure how we're feeling about that.