by That’s right. The Cleveland Guardians have won another series. This time coming against the San Francisco Giants in a weekend affair. For those not counting, this was Cleveland’s 20th series win of the season, and the 12th series win at home.
In a series that began Friday night, it was a game that most people expected to take thanks to Tanner Bibee on the mound. But it was quite the opposite. It was one of Bibee’s worst starts of the season giving up four earned runs, but to his benefit the umpire had a very bad strike zone.
He did settle in after a rough first inning, and unfortunately it did not matter. It was a very rough night for the offense scoring just two runs on eleven hits. To make it even more frustrating, they had many chances to win the game leaving eleven runners on base. It was arguably one of the most frustrating games we have seen all season with RISP.
To say that the Guardians themselves were frustrated is an understatement. They responded Saturday with four runs in the first two innings, and three of them coming in the first inning. It was another two-hit game for Steven Kwan bringing in his ninth home run, and also officially becoming league-eligible for league batting average.
Kwan currently leads the MLB with a .364 AVG after the weekend. Jhonksey Noel also brought in his first home run at Progressive Field as a member for the Guardians. But the most surprising part of Saturday has to come from the pitching side of things.
Logan Allen had one of his better outings of the season as he went 4.1 innings giving up three hits, two earned runs, four walks, with a season-high nine strikeouts.
After Allen handed it off to the best bullpen in baseball, Scott Barlow, Pedro Avila, Sam Hentges, Hunter Gaddis, and Emmanuel Clase all finished off the job to get the 5-4 win tying up the series.
The Guardians broke Sunday morning with news of sending down Logan Allen to Triple-A. This came as a surprise to most fans as he had arguably his best outing just the night before.
Carlos Carrasco took the mound for a rubber match, and he had a quality outing giving up three earned runs, six hits, one walk, while bringing in four strikeouts.
After trailing 3-0 with no hits after the 3rd inning, the Guardians would then proceed to score five unanswered runs the rest of the game. It was a very nice day from the offense as everyone in the starting lineup other than Austin Hedges recorded a hit.
Angel Martinez continued to impress as his only game without reaching base was his first career game. Bo Naylor had a key three run home-run in the fifth inning which would eventually be the deciding factor in today’s game.
That is all thanks to four innings of one-hit shutout baseball from another dominant day from the bullpen consisting of Cade Smith, Tim Herrin, and once again the dominant duo of Hunter Gaddis and Emmanuel Clase.
The 5-4 win put the Guardians at 56-32 on the season, owning the best record in the American League. The win also improved their home record to an impressive 30-11. To top it all off, the 32,012 fans that showed out today helped top 1 million fans so far this season, the fastest pace since the 2008 season.
