DETROIT -- The stage was set for the Guardians to make a dramatic and much-needed comeback in the ninth inning on Tuesday. After Cleveland cut its deficit to two against Tigers closer Kenley Jansen, Travis Bazzana stepped to the plate and had men at second and third with two outs.
Some unease crept into the Comerica Park crowd after Bazzana worked a 3-0 count against Jansen. The 23-year-old sharply grounded Jansen’s next offering, a cutter, foul down the first-base line, and then appeared to express disappointment in himself for just missing his pitch.
Bazzana stepped back into the box and got another cutter from Jansen. He grounded out to second baseman Zach McKinstry for the final out.
“We're doing a lot of things really well,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said of his lineup. “It seems to be the runners in scoring position that continues to give us fits.”
The Guardians lost, 6-4, to the Tigers on Tuesday in the opener of a crucial three-game series between the American League Central rivals. It marked the latest setback for a Cleveland ballclub that is reeling and fading in the AL postseason picture.
The Guardians (58-62) are a season-high four games under .500. They are 7-16 since the All-Star break, 2-7 in August and 1-6 since swinging a flurry of moves before the Trade Deadline, which centered upon bolstering an offense that has been an Achilles' heel this season.
Tuesday’s loss included some good moments offensively. Chase DeLauter went 3-for-5 with a home run. Deadline acquisition Jo Adell belted his first home run in a Guardians uniform, and the lineup overall tallied nine hits (exactly one per inning) and seven walks. But all that traffic proved rather empty, as the Guardians went 0-for-9 with RISP and left 11 men on base.
The Guardians entered Tuesday 4-13 over their past 17 games, during which they hit .219 with runners in scoring position (25th in MLB) and had a .631 OPS. Over that same span, Cleveland also ranked ninth in plate appearances in those spots (193).
Vogt has continued to preach that the number of opportunities the Guardians are getting inspires confidence that this tide will turn. But this is not just a recent issue. Cleveland ranks 29th in MLB in OPS (.677) with RISP this season. Things haven’t been much better with runners on base and nobody out (.676 OPS, 26th).
Vogt said the Guardians are working on staying toward the middle of the field more in those situations and taking what the pitchers give them. DeLauter noted, while it sounds cliché, that another key is taking what the pitcher gives you.
“At the end of the day, to me, it's the same thing as nobody on, as far as taking the same swing. Obviously, you get a runner on third with less than two [outs], that's a different story. But when you get a guy in scoring position, you’re up there trying to get a pitch in the zone and try to put your best swing on it. No one's going to hate you if you do that.”
DeLauter didn’t have any opportunities with runners in scoring position, though he hit a single after Steven Kwan drew a one-out walk in the seventh. Kwan scored later on a José Ramírez groundout.
The Guardians’ inability to cash in opportunities at the plate has reared itself, but it’s not the only issue right now. The seventh inning was as emblematic as any of Cleveland’s struggle to play a complete game.
Starter Tanner Bibee issued a pair of one-out walks to Javier Báez and Zach McKinstry, spelling the end of his day. They each advanced 90 feet (and Báez scored) on a caught stealing error, when an on-line throw from catcher Patrick Bailey clanked off Ramírez’s glove.
“The days we hit, we don’t pitch, vice versa,” said Bibee, who was charged with six runs (five earned) on five hits and two walks with four strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings. “I go out there today and just give them the game.”
The urgency the Guardians feel was on display when Vogt called a team meeting on Sunday after losing two of three to the White Sox. Now, Cleveland is two games back of the final AL Wild Card spot and four games behind the division-leading White Sox (61-57). Meanwhile, Detroit is 59-60 and in second place.
The season is slipping in the wrong direction. The Guardians can’t afford for it to slip any more this week.
“Those meetings always come obviously when times are low, and obviously this is a pretty low point for us right now,” Bibee said. “I just think we just gotta keep going.”