What We Learned About Guardians After Series Loss To White Sox
The Cleveland Guardians need to to quickly move on from their series loss to the Chicago White Sox. The Guards dropped three of four to the worst team in the American League Central while their offense struggled to produce any runs.
This rough weekend did still provide a few learning points about this Guardians team.
Offense Struggling Without Steven Kwan
Steven Kwan was the tone-setter for this Guardians offense. Without him in the lineup, the lineup has looked lost and has struggled stringing together hits. Kwan’s .407 OBP routinely put pressure on pitchers creating more opportunities for Jose Ramirez and Josh Naylor which trickled down the lineup.
Since Kwan’s injury, Cleveland has a team batting average of .203 and an on-base percentage of .248.
The Guardians Are A Power Hitting Team?!
A lack of home runs has been a criticism of this Guardians team for the last few seasons. They’ve hit the fewest home runs in 2023 and second-fewest in 2022. That hasn’t been the case for the 2024 Guardians and this series against the White Sox proved that.
Cleveland hit seven of their 45 home runs this season in Chicago alone. Can we now consider this team a power-hitting club? They are top 10 in this stat in MLB.
That may be a stretch, but this series certainly proved that this team is more than capable of hitting a home run when needed.
Costly Errors Hard To Make Up
The Guardians are a more than solid defensive team. But sometimes even the best teams can make mistakes on defense. Those errors hurt even more when the offense is struggling to score runs. This was the case for Cleveland against the White Sox.
In the second game of the series, Gabriel Arias misplayed a routine ground ball hit to second base which allowed two runs to score. The Guardians ended up losing that game by three runs. Will Brennan misplay a ball in right field in the third allowing an extra run to cross the plate. Cleveland list this game by two runs.
This is by no means saying Arias and Brennan cost the Guardians the series, but it just goes to show how perfect a team has to play to win when the offense isn’t scoring.
TOMMY WILD