To be honest, when the Cleveland Guardians embarked on this trip to Colorado, Los Angeles, and Minnesota, we would have taken a 4-5 record. Just tread water and get back to Progressive Field, where they haven’t played much this season.
Six games into the trek, the Guards have already picked up five wins, thus clinching a winning trip and now head into a span where they play the team ahead of them in the AL Central standings, the Twins, eight times in the next ten days.
Minnesota sits one game ahead of Terry Francona’s squad, but because the Guardians have had so many games postponed because of weather, Cleveland is actually two games ahead in the loss column.
And when the team returns hope from the Twin Cities on Friday night, they will likely have played 39 of their 65 games on the road, meaning of course they will play 55 of the last 97 contests on the schedule at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.
While the contact oriented hitting approach has been widely discussed and praised, the efforts of the pitching staff should not be ignored.
In this three week span where the Guards have gone 15-4, they have allowed more than four runs in a game just five times. This means most nights, the starting pitcher has given his team a shot at winning.
In 13 of those 19 games, the opponents scored no more than three tallies. The offense doesn’t have to be hitting on all cylinders to win games when your pitching is that good.
We don’t think fans realize how special that is. Even this past weekend, the pitching held the mighty Dodgers (yes, they were without Mookie Betts) to three runs or less in two of the three games, both of which resulted in Cleveland victories.
Ace Shane Bieber has made 13 starts in 2022 and has allowed more than three runs just once, an 8-3 loss to Toronto on May 7th. Since that start, he’s pitched 45-1/3 innings, allowing just 11 earned runs, a 2.18 ERA.
Triston McKenzie has started 11 times this year, allowing more than three runs in a game just twice. He’s allowed just 46 hits in 70 frames for the season.
Cal Quantrill has a dozen starts under his belt this season and has allowed more than three runs just twice, the second coming this past weekend in Dodger Stadium. He’s gone at least five innings in all but one start this year.
Zach Plesac can’t match the consistency shown by the trio already mentioned, but he’s allowed either one or two runs in three of his last four outings. No doubt that’s a trend Francona and pitching coach Carl Willis would like to see continued.
Rookie Konnor Pilkington has made four starts since Aaron Civale went on the injured list, and he didn’t allow more than four runs in those appearances.
Give your team a chance.
That’s the mantra the Guardians’ starting staff uses and it works. Give the offense a chance to scratch out some runs and who knows? It’s worked pretty well so far. As long as the rotation can do its job, the Guards will be in the mix.
It’s a simple formula really.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 