Guardians Are Leaving A Lot Of Runs On The Board

The Cleveland Guardians' offense has been an issue just about all season. The surge fans saw in the month of June turned out to be an anomaly as the scoring drought returned in the month of July and got even worse after the trade deadline and into August.

They still have hit the fewest home runs in baseball and their 618 total runs in 2023 is the 27th fewest too.

Needless to say, Cleveland has to find a way to score more and it starts with one stat and piece of situational hitting. That's making sure the team converts when they have runners in scoring position.

The Guardians are struggling to do anything when they have runners at second and third base. So far this season, Cleveland has a slash line of .244/.322/.362 and an OPS of .684 with RISP. They also have just 435 RBI in this situation which ranks bottom 10 in baseball.

For reference, Los Angeles Dodgers lead all of MLB the way with 560.

Cleveland also only has 21 total hits and a .210 batting average when they have the baseball-loaded which won't cut it when trying to win games.

The Guardians dropped game one of their series with Kansas City Royals on Monday afternoon and many fans will point to the meltdown that Trevor Stephan had on the mound in the eighth innings.

However, we can't ignore that the offense went 2-for-11 with RISP and left six runners on base. This highlights just how important it is to bring home baserunners when given the chance.

Yes, power is still a problem for the Guardians, but finding one bat who can hit homers won't fix all of Cleveland's problems on offense if they can't routinely come up with clutch hits.

The Guardians do need to find someone of that caliber while also focusing on developing their current hitters to succeed in 2024.