Guardians slugger Josh Naylor says his ALDS home run celebration wasn't towards Gerrit Cole: "The media made it look like I was doing it at him"

The Cleveland Guardians and Josh Naylor may have accidentally started a rivalry with the New York Yankees, especially ace Gerrit Cole. During the American League Division Series, which saw the two teams take shots at each other in a hard-fought five-game series, Naylor hit a huge home run off of Cole.

He proceeded to round the bases doing the "Rock the Baby" celebration, seemingly insinuating that Cole was his child. Members of the media and Cole himself certainly believed it was directed at the pitcher, but Naylor said otherwise.

According to USA Today, the star first baseman said the idea was to fire up his teammates:

"Maybe. I don’t know. It was a moment. I was doing that all year, but probably not as aggressive as I did there. It was more so to get the guys fired up. I think the media made it look like I was doing it at him directly. I was doing it at the bench and I really wanted to fire up my guys because we were winning that series."

Cole didn't appreciate it, later chuckling at the celebration in a postgame press conference.

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Why was Josh Naylor so happy about his home run?

At the time, the Guardians held a 2-1 lead in the series over the Yankees. The home run cut the Guardians' deficit to one run in the fourth inning. It could have been a game changer and could have been a catalyst for a Guardians ALCS appearance.

Josh Naylor's huge home run

However, Cole and the Yankees shut it down the rest of the way and won the following game to earn that trip. For Josh Naylor, the aggressive celebration was more about that than trying to mock Cole:

"That Yankees team is crazy phenomenal, man... It's just like a powerhouse team and if we were to beat them, I was just trying to get our guys fired up and get us that win, some way, somehow. It is what it is. I did it. I was just trying to get the guys going a little bit and energize not only the crowd but the boys."

Unfortunately, that didn't end up happening and it did look as if Naylor was mocking the star pitcher, who had struggled with the long ball that year.