CLEVELAND — The Yankees and Guardians both played to type Saturday night. The Yankees showed their usual might. The Guardians scrapped and scraped, and eventually they prevailed in a last-minute stunner.

The teams demonstrated what they do. The Yankees showed their muscle. The Guardians kept pecking away. Ultimately, for the Yankees it was death by a thousand cuts.

At their best the Yankees can overpower. Meantime, the upstart Guardians will annoy, and they certainly did in Game 3 of the ALDS, stringing one hit after another until the final one ended it in a walk-off win for the home team.

The Guardians gathered three times as many hits as the Yankees — 15-5 — and it took every last one. Oscar Gonzalez hit a hard ground single off surprise closer Clarke Schmidt with two outs and two strikes in the ninth, capping a three-run, ninth-inning rally for a stunning 6-5 Guardians walk-off victory.

“We lost a tough one tonight,” Aaron Judge said. “We just have to do our thing [Sunday], and take it back to The Bronx.”

The raucous crowd predictably went delirious. Progressive Field rocked. The upstart Indians lead the series 2-1 in games and are one win away from facing the Astros in the ALCS.

“Obviously it’s a tough blow getting walked off in Game 3,” Josh Donaldson said. “At the end of the day we’ve got to turn the page, get ready for [Sunday] and bring our A game.”

The Yankees rely on the long ball more than any other team, scoring 50.8 percent of their runs on homers. But they’ve gone to extremes in this series, where 91 percent of their runs have come via home runs.

Some might worry that the Yankees rely too much on homers. But this is their history, from Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to Joe DiMaggio to Mickey Mantle to Reggie Jackson. They have 27 World Series titles, many this way.

Hey, however you do it, they all count.

The Guardians know that only too well. They do it the opposite way, by stringing single after single. And they never stopped Saturday. In the end 13 of their 15 hits were singles, the opposite of the Yankees, who registered three home runs among their five hits.

“That’s the way they play. They’re a high-contact team,” Donaldson said. “They had good at bats. They had some balls go their way today. That’s baseball.”

In the end the matchups favored them, as the Yankees’ usual closer Clay Holmes didn’t enter the game. Manager Aaron Boone said he understood Holmes was technically available but said he felt like Holmes “was in jeopardy” after pitching the first two games following a shoulder issue that caused him to miss the end of the regular season. Holmes never warmed up but he said afterward that he had thrown lightly, like usual, and had told Boone he could pitch “if needed.”

As it turned out Schmidt came close to getting out of the bases-loaded jam when he struck out cleanup man Josh Naylor. But with two strikes, Gonzalez got him.

The pressure is squarely on the Yankees today.

“We have the guys in this room to go out and do it,” Donaldson said. “We just have to go out there and do it.”

The Guardians led early when Judge stepped to the plate in the third inning. Judge, battling a rare mini-slump, hit the ball almost out of Cuyahoga County to tie the score. It sailed past the bushes that line the center-field wall, startling the enthusiastic home crowd that likely was just getting used to the idea that Judge could be handled.

The power surge was just getting going. Two innings later, rookie Oswaldo Cabrera knew he got one. And later, Harrison Bader, the defensive stalwart brought in mostly to man center field, hit his second home run of the series. He’s not normally a home run hitter, but hey, he knows the score. The Yankees Fan from Bronxville understands how they do it here.

The Guardians are a tough out, no matter what anyone says. They won 24 of their final 30 games. Teams can win by hitting single after single, as we see. They are the opposite of the Yankees, scoring only 31.8 percent of their runs via home runs over the course of the season, the third lowest percentage in all of baseball. No surprise, the Yankees out-homered the Guardians by exactly double — 254 to 127.

Some might wonder if the Yankees rely too heavily on the long ball. But games, and series, and even championships, can be won this way. The last time the Yankees won the World Series, in 2009, it was Alex Rodriguez dominating with home runs. That is their history, too.

The Yankees have a powerful team, of that there is no doubt. But the Guardians are pesky, resourceful. They also have a deeper bullpen, especially with five Yankees relievers currently out with injuries. The Guardians have a lot going for them, more than most of us realized.