CLEVELAND \u2014 Every American League team has at least 50 losses. The Guardians have 56 of them. Yeah, they\u2019re that close to the best record in the AL. It\u2019s been a wild summer. The race is wide open and, somehow, they\u2019re firmly involved.<\/p>\n
How\u2019d it happen? Well, if you were among those who shifted your attention to the Shedeur Sanders experience once the Guardians plummeted to 40-48 five weeks ago, here\u2019s a summary of what you\u2019ve missed:<\/p>\n
3rd: The Guardians\u2019 rank, among the league\u2019s 30 teams, in runs scored over the last five weeks<\/p>\n
Yes, the same offense that was blanked five times during a 10-game skid is now scoring runs in bunches. The two teams the Guardians trail in that span \u2014 the Toronto Blue Jays and Milwaukee Brewers \u2014 have been on a summer-long tear.<\/p>\n
Consider the slash lines of each of the three teams over the last five weeks:<\/p>\n
Toronto: .304\/.369\/.502
Milwaukee: .286\/.354\/.449
Cleveland: .244\/.322\/.423<\/p>\n
One of those might look like it doesn\u2019t belong, sure, but it illustrates that the Guardians have delivered timely hitting, something they were allergic to for the first few months. They rank fifth in walk rate and eighth in strikeout rate over that stretch, two healthy traits for any offense. They\u2019re tied for 10th in home runs and tied for sixth in stolen bases. This has been a well-rounded attack of late.<\/p>\n
Kyle Manzardo has pushed his OPS to .808 (and it stands at .994 over his last 30 games). He\u2019s up to 20 home runs, and assuming he belts at least five more before the end of the year, he\u2019ll join Asdr\u00fabal Cabrera, Francisco Lindor, Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez, Franmil Reyes, Carlos Santana and Grady Sizemore as the only Cleveland hitters aged 25 or younger with a 25-homer season since the turn of the century.<\/p>\n
Manzardo\u2019s surge has supplied cover for Cleveland\u2019s All-Stars. Ram\u00edrez went 2-for-25 on the club\u2019s road trip, yet the Guardians went 5-1. Steven Kwan has also suffered through a prolonged funk.<\/p>\n
Finally, however, the Guardians\u2019 lineup has some depth. Brayan Rocchio has re-emerged from Triple-A Columbus as a more confident hitter. Daniel Schneemann has settled into the No. 2 spot in the lineup against righties. David Fry and Angel Mart\u00ednez have feasted on lefties. It\u2019s far from a perfect group, but it\u2019s performing light years better than it was in the first three months.<\/p>\n
4th: The Guardians\u2019 rank, among the league\u2019s 30 teams, in ERA over the last five weeks<\/p>\n
This seems like a good opportunity to tip the hat to some unheralded members of the pitching staff.<\/p>\n
Logan Allen: a 3.76 ERA and at least five innings pitched in all 11 starts since a brief bullpen stint in late May
Jakob Junis: a 1.31 ERA over his last 19 appearances
Matt Festa: two earned runs on four hits over 11 1\/3 innings in the last month<\/p>\n
How about the fact that \u201cwhere would this team be without Kolby Allard?\u201d is an actual, logical question? The journeyman soft-tosser has posted a 2.63 ERA across 48 innings in a role best described as mop-up\/spot start\/occasional high-leverage\/\u201cYou need me? OK, no problem, let me just finish this granola bar and jog out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
It helps that Cleveland\u2019s starters are pitching deeper into games. Before Sunday (and a potentially stat-skewing, three-inning effort from Slade Cecconi), the Guardians ranked second in the majors in innings per start over the last five weeks, behind only the Philadelphia Phillies. That makes life easier on the bullpen. Speaking of \u2026<\/p>\n
1.63: The combined ERA for Cleveland\u2019s two new bullpen gems<\/p>\n
Nic Enright has allowed an earned run in only two of 20 appearances. Erik Sabrowski has allowed two earned runs in 15 outings.<\/p>\n
For a bullpen desperate for late-inning help to replace Tim Herrin (command trouble) and Emmanuel Clase (career trouble), Enright and Sabrowski have delivered an essential piece to this turnaround puzzle.<\/p>\n
Sabrowski got a taste of high leverage last season when he joined the team late in the summer. He was perfectly capable then, though he admitted he wasn\u2019t sure he even belonged, and he\u2019s certainly pitching with confidence now. He owns a 0.64 ERA in 28 1\/3 big-league innings. As for Enright, it\u2019s not the flashiest stuff (93.3 mph average fastball), but his slider induces a ton of whiffs and he attacks the strike zone.<\/p>\n
Their background stories reveal a pair of relievers determined not to waste the opportunity. Enright will undergo another cancer treatment after the season; he scheduled it for November to ensure there\u2019s time for a deep postseason run. Sabrowski missed nearly four years of pitching because of a pair of elbow surgeries sandwiched around the pandemic. The Guardians scooped him up in the minor-league portion of the Rule 5 Draft and now he\u2019s Stephen Vogt\u2019s go-to lefty.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
.145: Opposing hitters\u2019 batting average against Gavin Williams over his last six starts<\/p>\n
Williams last week nearly tossed Cleveland\u2019s first no-hitter in 44 years, a cruelly ironic drought for an organization that has boasted a vaunted pitching factory. In fact, Len Barker, the author of that perfect script on May 15, 1981, was watching Williams\u2019 bid for history from Progressive Field, where Barker was working an event as an alumni ambassador.<\/p>\n
The wait for another no-hit masterpiece continues. The wait for another Cleveland ace? That might not take as long. Williams, a first-round pick and consensus top 50 prospect who always oozed frontline starter potential, has looked the part lately.<\/p>\n
In those six starts, Williams has limited the opposition to seven runs on 19 hits in 38 2\/3 innings. Let\u2019s rewind even further, though. Over the last three months, Williams has logged a 2.52 ERA in 16 starts, and the opposition has mustered a .180 average against him. After months of tweaks to his pitch arsenal and his delivery, he has finally settled on a setup that seems to work. With an upper-90s fastball, a looping curveball and darting sweeper, and now a cutter and sinker to confuse hitters, Williams can pile up strikeouts without issue. But he\u2019s not going out of his way to chase strikeouts, and it\u2019s led to more efficient pitch counts and higher innings totals.<\/p>\n
Williams\u2019 five starts in May: 24 2\/3 innings, 500 pitches
Williams\u2019 five starts before the near-no-hitter: 30 innings, 470 pitches<\/p>\n
9.5: The number of games the Guardians have trimmed off the Tigers\u2019 division lead<\/p>\n
On the morning of July 9, even after winning a couple of games in Houston, the Guardians sat 15.5 games behind the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central. About a month later, that Pacific Ocean-sized gap has shrunk to the size of a narrow creek.<\/p>\n
The Guardians hit rock bottom at 40-48 after the Tigers swept them at Progressive Field on July 4 weekend. The Tigers were 57-34. Since then, they\u2019re 11-17. The Guardians are 21-8. Poof, a comfortable, stretch-your-legs-for-three-months division lead is no more.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all happened in five weeks, and that includes the four motionless days of the All-Star break. Yes, the Guardians have capitalized on a more forgiving schedule, but their two toughest assignments during that stretch \u2014 road visits to the Houston Astros and New York Mets \u2014 resulted in Cleveland sweeps.<\/p>\n
Following series against the Miami Marlins, Atlanta Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks, the Guardians\u2019 schedule increases in difficulty, essentially until they reach the finish line. They have six more meetings with the Tigers, all slated for the final 12 days of the season. If they snag a playoff spot, they\u2019ll have earned it.<\/p>\n
(Photo of Kyle Manzardo:\u00a0 Patrick Gorski \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 Every American League team has at least 50 losses. The Guardians have 56 of them. Yeah,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":137124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1282,1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-137123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-cleveland-guardians","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115010561072416316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}