Guardians catcher’s Emmanuel Clase take looks pretty terrible right about now

A pitcher-catcher duo is a sacred partnership in the sport of baseball. If a batter attempts to charge the mound, it's the catcher that puts himself on the line to stop the batter. If a pitcher blows a game, it's the catcher that has his back as soon as the game ends.

So when the Cleveland Guardians veteran catcher took to the media to boost up his closer, Emmanuel Clase, awhile back, it made complete sense. But Austin Hedges didn't stop at boosting his star closer up. Hedges compared Clase to the best pitchers of all time, including Mariano Rivera, who's unanimously recognized as the best reliever in the history of the game.

But for Hedges to claim that Clase was better than Rivera, no matter the context in which he was talking, is absolutely absurd. I understand that Clase is coming off an incredible regular season, but Rivera did it for 19 years, finishing top five in Cy Young voting five different years.

And it's like the baseball gods heard Hedges. Because the postseason collapse of Clase has been incredibly overwhelming this October.

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Austin Hedges' take on Emmanuel Clase aging like spoiled milk as Guardians closer continues to blow games

Clase began the postseason with a clean inning in a 7-0 win against the Detroit Tigers. He proceeded to allow four hits and the massive home run to Kerry Carpenter to lose Game 2 against Detroit. He allowed another run in his next appearance before going two shutout innings in his fourth outing.

Since then, the New York Yankees have terrorized him. Clase came in to face Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton with a 3-1 lead in Game 3, allowing home runs to both of them, marking the first time in his career that Clase has allowed multiple home runs in an outing. That, and the Yankees took a 4-3 lead.

After his Game 3 collapse, which ultimately didn't hurt the Guardians due to heroics from David Fry and Jhonkensy Noel, Clase took to Instagram to showcase his accomplishments, in an attempt to silence the haters. It was like Clase was trying to drown out the hate from his postseason collapse by showcasing his regular season awards.

Clase allowed 39 hits, two home runs and five earned runs across 75.1 regular season innings that led to Hedges making his controversial comments.

In six postseason appearances, Clase has seven innings, 11 hits allowed, and three home runs allowed. He's two for three in save opportunities after being 47 for 50 in the regular season. Clase has also been tabbed with two losses in his six appearances. He's allowed runs in four of his six appearances.

Something like this has never happened to Rivera. He notoriously turned his play up to another level when the lights were the brightest in the postseason.