The Guardians’ magic number: still twelve.
As the post season is coming on like freight train, every game becomes more and more crucial to clinch a spot.
Unfortunately for the Guardians, they failed to shrink that number for the second game in a row, dropping their Friday night match up to the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1. With the loss, the Guardians move to 1-4 against the Rays this season, and lose the season series to Tampa Bay for the first time since 2021.
The bats struggled all night, putting up only four hits on the night with one lone run coming home – an RBI double from David Fry that looked like it could have been a home run, but was not called out.
The Rays pitching seemed to have the Guardians’ number all season
“They know how to pitch,” manager Stephen Vogt said of the Rays pitching after the game. “They’ve kept us off-balance, they’re executing their off-speed pitches, and we need to do better against them. This is five games now that we’ve played against them where we’ve struggled to put runs up, so we’ve got our work cut out for us the next two days. But we’re going to do what we do every day. Show up ready to play and go out and give it our best”
And while it can be easy to point fingers at Tanner Bibee – giving up 8 hits, 3 runs, and 2 home runs through 6 innings of work – this is one of those performances where you have to zoom out and look at the big picture.
Bibee pitched incredibly well through the first two innings.
The Rays’ bats started to figure things out in the third, getting four hits and two runs off of a home run. But Bibee managed to bounce back in a big way, striking out the next three batters to end the inning, and that kind of bounce back cannot be underestimated.
“I think that just shows again how Tanner is progressing, and the type of pitcher that he is to get into a hole like that and to bear down and get us out of that inning and keep us in the game.” Vogt said of Bibee’s bounce back in the third. “Six innings, three runs, we’ll take that 100 out of 100 times. He did his job tonight and he battled through it.”
While Vogt was complimentary of Bibee’s outing, the righty understandably wasn’t happy following the loss.
“I feel like it was a good improvement from the Texas start a couple times ago to stop the damage after that,” Bibee said after the game. “But to even be in that situation is not very good.”
Jhonkensy Noel continues to be a bright spot for the Guardians’ lineup, going two for three on the night with a double and his first career triple. And the bullpen did what the bullpen does: holding their opponent scoreless. Andrew Walters and Eli Morgan combined for 3 hitless and scoreless innings, marking the 55th time this season Cleveland’s bullpen held an opponent scoreless through at least three innings of relief this season.
So, while there were some positives to take away from the Guardians’ loss, the bottom line is that in two days the team failed to chip away at the magic number to clinch a playoff spot. With two more against the Rays followed immediately by a four-game divisional match up with the Twins, the next six days aren’t going to be easy.
But the biggest concern for this team may not actually be the rotation, the bats, or even the upcoming schedule. It's Steven Kwan, who was pulled from the lineup just two hours before game time with body soreness. After the game Vogt said he had been experiencing some back soreness and they sent him for testing, and as of right now that's all we know.