Guardians' struggles with RISP lead to their first sweep since August

CLEVELAND -- With three and a half months remaining in the regular season, it would come as a surprise if Guardians manager Stephen Vogt was actively tracking the American League Central standings right now. There’s a lot of baseball to be played, and a lot can change over the next few months.

Vogt hopes that his club will keep its focus in one place.

“It's going to be a tough division. We know that,” Vogt said Wednesday morning. “We just have to take care of our stuff. We can't control what everybody else does. We were a testament to that last year.”

In 2025, the Guardians completed a historic comeback to win the Central. This season, they find themselves in a race that doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down anytime soon.

The Guardians fell, 8-4, to the Yankees at Progressive Field on Wednesday afternoon as New York completed a three-game sweep. It marked the first time Cleveland was swept since Aug. 22-24, 2025, against Texas, snapping a streak of 31 consecutive series without being swept, which led the AL.

The Guardians (37-33, .529) have lost six of their past seven games and now have company atop the Central. The White Sox (36-31, .537) stand percentage points ahead of them after a 2-1 win over the Braves on Wednesday night. It’s the first time Cleveland has not held sole possession of first place since the morning of April 29.

“Some of the bad things that happen, you just flush it and move on,” starter Parker Messick said. “It's a long season, and we're right in the middle of it. We’ve shown the kind of team that we can be. We're playing like the team that we don't really want to be right now.”

Granted, three of the Guardians’ past seven losses were decided by one run, and another by two runs (Monday’s 7-5 setback). They can take solace in the fact that they’ve been in many of these games and things could have ended up differently with one swing.

The frustrating aspect of this is the Guardians have had many moments recently where the big swing has eluded them. The Guardians went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and left six men on base on Wednesday. Over the three-game series against the Yankees, they went 3-for-28 with RISP and left 30 men on base.

Over the past seven games, Cleveland is 7-for-55 with RISP.

“We’re right in there,” Vogt said. “It's been a tough stretch. It's been a tough nine-day stretch. We've had a lot of close losses that could have gone either way, but we're going to learn from it.”

The Guardians’ problems extended beyond their offense on Wednesday; this was a 3-3 game through five innings, and New York scored its first three runs with the benefit of some fortune.

Messick allowed a leadoff single to Trent Grisham in the second. José Caballero followed with a bunt single, and he and Grisham advanced an extra 90 feet on the play due to a Messick throwing error. Messick fell to the ground to corral the bunt, and then skipped his throw to first baseman Rhys Hoskins. Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a two-run triple, during which right fielder Angel Martínez slipped while planting his feet to throw the ball back to the infield.

Chisholm scored on a fielding error by second baseman Travis Bazzana, who bobbled an Anthony Volpe ground ball.

“They're a great team,” Messick said. “We played them really close the first two days. Today obviously got away from us. They're a great team. When we do the little things right, and everything that we want to do right, we're right there with them and can hang in any game with them.

“When we don't, they obviously have the ability to get games out of reach. They have a bunch of good hitters.”

That’s where the Guardians are continuing to work toward. There have been encouraging signs offensively this season in a group full of up-and-coming hitters, but Cleveland entered Wednesday ranked 23rd in MLB in both runs per game (4.04) and home runs (64).

This group is working through the highs and lows of a season. They won’t have much of a let-up as the Tigers come to town on Friday to open a three-game series. Detroit is off to a 6-2 start to June, entering play Wednesday.

“We're still in a really good spot,” catcher Austin Hedges said. “We're going to enjoy the off-day, and I think we're going to have a good series against the Tigers.”