3 Ways the Cleveland Guardians Can Still Make the 2026 MLB Playoffs

The Cleveland Guardians have a lot of ground to make up in order to elevate themselves back into the playoff conversation, and it needs to start now.

If the Guardians want to have a chance at making the playoffs with a little over a month of regular season baseball left, they have a few important things they need to happen. Whether it’s player performance or certain win scenarios, the opportunity is still on the table.

There’s still plenty of baseball left to be played, so fans shouldn’t count the Guardians out quite yet. It’s hard to find an environment like Progressive Field this late in the season, which means teams will face an uphill battle when visiting Cleveland.

Outside of the home field advantage the Guardians gain at this point in the season, they still need to have other avenues to make it back to the MLB playoffs.

Here are three ways the Guardians can make it to the playoffs this season.

A late season collapse by the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers

The two teams that will give the Guardians a real tough time making it back to the playoffs are the White Sox and the Tigers, who have been playing like playoff teams as of late while distancing themselves from Cleveland as of late.

Cleveland only sits four games out of first place but are still behind Minnesota and Detroit in the current MLB standings. That is a much easier gap to makeup than the 15.5 games they had to overcome last season. If any team can do it, it’s the Guardians.

Both Detroit and Chicago play some relatively difficult teams coming up on their schedule, so all that Cleveland can do is hope that those two teams suffer some series losses. If that’s the case, Cleveland can’t keep playing like they are; they need to start stringing together win streaks.

Winning a series is one thing but putting together a winning streak or two is a whole different story. Even if Cleveland went on a five-game win streak and saw each of their divisional foes fall off a bit, that could be enough to jolt them back into wildcard or division leading contention.

Fellow wildcard contenders need to take a step back going into September

It would be great if the Guardians can jump both the Twins and Tigers to get back into this divisional race, but they also need a few other wildcard teams to take a step back as well.

Both the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros are ahead of Cleveland in the American League playoff pursuit, but only by a couple of games. The perfect scenario would be to jump your divisional foes, but also to jump the two AL Texas teams that are making a push as well.

Cleveland won’t play against either of the Texas teams the rest of this season, so all they can hope for is a decline in play while stringing together some meaningful wins. At the end of the day, a win is a win, but they need to start coming more frequently as the season winds down.

If all four of the teams currently ahead of Cleveland let the Guardians back into this playoff race, it’s going to be difficult to take them down if their offense gets back on track.

Offensive production and a surging starting rotation can get the job done

This seems like a no brainer, but both areas of this Guardians team have been struggling lately to win them games even after Cleveland decided to be buyers at the trade deadline.

Jose Ramirez hasn’t been himself since reaggravating his hand injury, but if there’s one thing about Ramirez that fans know, it’s that he shows up when it matters most. Ramirez is the heart and soul of this Guardians team, and his teammates will follow suit if he can get his bat rolling.

Even after the Guardians acquired Foster Griffin at the deadline, he hasn’t shown his All-Star self since his arrival. Cleveland’s only sub 3.00 ERA starter is Parker Messick, and that needs to change as soon as possible.

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