What We Learned About The Guardians: June 13
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The Guardians have been playing some great and fun baseball to watch lately! The offense is hitting the ball, the starters are pitching well, and they are winning. There is certainly a lot that fans learned about the team this week.
The Guardians Could Be A Playoff Contender
The Guardians currently sit three games back of the Minnesota Twins in the division and are only a half game back of the Boston Red Sox for the third Wild Card spot. They have played about the third of the season, so these standings are no fluke. The Guardians are showing that they could continue to be a playoff contender throughout the season.
Some may bring up that the last three or four teams the Guardians have played were not the strongest, which is fair, but they still have to show up and play their opponent well. This is exactly what the Guardians have done over the last few weeks and have currently won seven of their last 10 games and their last four series.
Their next three series are against the Rockies, Dodgers, and Twins which will be a big test to show whether or not this young team has what it takes to make a playoff push.
Oscar Gonzalez Is Here To Stay
Oscar Gonzalez has been on fire ever since he was called up! He is batting .391, slugging .531, and already has six RBI on the season.
It would be shocking to see Gonzalez get sent back down to AAA after becoming the first Guardians rookie to have 25 hits in their first 15 games. Tito has shown his confidence in the young hitter and even had him hitting clean-up in the series finale against the A's.
Gonzalez is playing at an unbelievable level right now and even though it would not be surprising if he started to cool off a bit, he should work through that at the big league level not back down in the minors.
The Bullpen Is Human
The Guardians bullpen has been one of the best in all of baseball this season, but last week they had a little bit of a hiccup.
Eli Morgan rarely gives up a run, so to see him give up a grand slam in game three against Oakland was shocking, to say the least. Trevor Stephan started the year strong, but in his last seven games has given up five earned runs and 10 hits. Sam Hentges also gave up a pair of solo home runs against Oakland which is out of character for how he has pitched this year.
In their defense, a lot was asked from the bullpen as a whole last with little rest between games. They played a doubleheader against the Rangers and then a two-hour rain delay in game three forced Tito to rely heavily on the bullpen. It would make sense if they were tired for the series against Oakland.
With the day off today, hopefully, they can get rested and recharged before a big week of interleague play.
The team continues to play well, but have a big test ahead of them! Make sure to come back next week to see what we learned about the Guardians.
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