CLEVELAND — A few minutes after Oscar Gonzalez’s ninth-inning single Saturday night gave the Cleveland Guardians a walk-off, 6-5 win over the New York Yankees in Game 3 of the American League Division Series, but long enough later that the actual celebration had ceased, a commotion arose in the back corner of the Guardians’ clubhouse.

Steven Kwan, who had one of the five ninth-inning hits that helped Cleveland come back from two runs down, was in full uniform, shirt untucked, hustling around teammate Josh Naylor in pursuit of a miniature basketball. Naylor was scurrying around him, heckled by teammates, hoping to bury a shot before Kwan could recover.

The youngest team in Major League Baseball had just finished a grueling two days that included a 10-inning win in Game 2, a late flight to Cleveland and a ninth-inning comeback against the most storied franchise in baseball. They had just pulled themselves within a game of the AL Championship Series. And they were consumed with a game of indoor, mini-hoop knockout.

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“We’re competitors. We’re baseball players,” said rookie Will Brennan, whose sixth-inning RBI single pulled the Guardians within two. “This is all we do.”

More experienced playoff teams, worn by years and expectations, find themselves exhausted by the pursuit of October glory.

The Yankees, for example, watched a patchwork bullpen devolve after homers by Aaron Judge, Oswaldo Cabrera and Harrison Bader built them a two-run lead they held into the ninth inning. The Yankees led the majors in homers this year. The Guardians hit the second fewest. They outhit the Yankees 15-5 on Saturday but beat them by just one run. That is how the best contact team in baseball won all year.

“We’re not out trying to make any statements or anything. We’re just playing our game,” catcher Austin Hedges said. “We’re not going to go out there and beat you, 10-1. This is how we win games.”

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They may not be trying to make any statements, but even setting his unorthodox walk-up song aside, Gonzalez is writing history all the same. The 24-year-old’s walk-off single against right-hander Clarke Schmidt was his third go-ahead hit in the ninth inning or later in five postseason games this year — as many as any player in baseball has ever had in a career. Only David Ortiz has hit so many in the same postseason.

“Incredible,” Gonzalez said through team interpreter Agustin Rivero.

“I feel like he doesn’t realize entirely how talented he is,” shortstop Amed Rosario, also responsible for a ninth-inning single and the scorer of the winning run, said through Rivero. It may be hard to hide from now. Teammates called Gonzalez “SpongeBob” this year because of his walk-up song. Saturday night, Hedges called him something new.

“Right-handed Big Papi,” he said — and for a young Dominican player hoping for stardom, perhaps no nickname could mean more.

Naylor drove home the first run of the day with a single in the first inning, one that unleashed the unabashed joy of a city watching its promising team exceed expectations. The Guardians entered this postseason brimming with energy, bouncing with the buoyancy of a team unburdened by the kind of expectations that make it so hard for the Yankees to surprise not only the baseball world but even themselves every year.

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The Yankees do not live in a world where they can exceed expectations. They don’t stun teams like the Guardians stunned them. When they do not win, they search for answers.

And the answer Saturday night was as straightforward as it was uncomplicated: Manager Aaron Boone started this series with four proven relievers — one of whom, presumptive closer Clay Holmes, missed the last week of the regular season with a shoulder injury. He used all four of them in a losing effort in Game 2. On Saturday, he pushed Wandy Peralta until he worked himself into trouble in the ninth. And instead of Holmes, whom Boone said he wanted to avoid using on back-to-back days so soon after the injury, he chose Schmidt, a rookie who couldn’t miss Cleveland’s bats.

“Part of the thing with him being available for this series was [he was] not really in a back-to-back situation yet,” Boone said. “... So while he was pretty good today and I fully expect him available tomorrow, it just felt like we needed to stay away there.”

Holmes said later that he was expecting to pitch. Starter Luis Severino, who struggled early but settled down to hold the Guardians to two runs into the sixth, was stunned not to see him.

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“He’s our closer, so of course I was surprised,” Severino said. “I don’t know if he was down. There shouldn’t be people down in the playoffs.”

The Yankees are down now, a game away from watching another veteran roster succumb to wear and tear and the pressure of it all. They finished Saturday creaking at the joints, sniping at each other, taking grievances public. Down the hall and a world away, the Guardians answered questions about a cartoon sea sponge and chased a mini basketball around the clubhouse in full uniform like kids up late on a school night, biding time until they get to run around again tomorrow.

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