CLEVELAND -- The Guardians know they might be trying to do too much at the plate right now. They also know that this won’t last forever.

Cleveland scuffled again on Tuesday night in a 5-1 loss to Colorado at Progressive Field. The offense was able to muster just six hits and the Guardians’ lone run was plated on a sacrifice fly. In the series opener on Monday, they recorded just four hits.

The club is still working through naming its starting pitcher for Wednesday’s series finale. There is still plenty of speculation of whether No. 5 prospect (according to MLB Pipeline) Tanner Bibee will get the nod.

With lefty Konnor Pilkington, who was an option to serve as an opener on short rest, getting into Tuesday’s game in relief and leaving the clubhouse with a duffel bag over his shoulder after saying goodbye to teammates, there are signs indicating that the next starter will need to be added to the roster.

Bibee is an easy assumption to fill that role.

Regardless of who’s on the rubber, the offense will need to be able to back them up. And right now, the problem is that the bats are lacking discipline.

“You get in modes when you’re trying to get yourself going and you start swinging at everything. We’re gonna have to be more disciplined,” manager Terry Francona said. “We’re swinging at fastballs, we’re swinging at all speeds, and it’s easier said than done, but we’re going to have to do better.”

The Guardians entered Tuesday with a 31.4% chase rate, which ranked third highest of all 30 MLB teams, trailing just the Royals (33.9%) and White Sox (33.8%). Cleveland then struck out nine times and whiffed on 22.6% of the pitches they saw against Colorado.

“I think there’s a combination of things,” Francona said. “You’re seeing some good pitching, you’re not feeling great at the plate, collectively we’ve kind of been in it together. The only thing I know, and we were talking about this before the game, you got to battle because nobody’s gonna feel sorry for us and we can’t let us do that either because that doesn’t help.”

Cleveland has been here before. The team is notorious for getting off to cold starts and after going 5-2 to open the 2023 campaign, this season has been no different. Through 24 games last year, the Guardians owned a collective .252 average and .396 slugging percentage. This season, those numbers are .228 and .342, respectively.

“I mean, you can barrel up four balls and get out, and you could do everything wrong and chase a pitch and tap it, and get it a hit," outfielder Steven Kwan said. "I mean, again, those are the things you have to know and just stick with it. Baseball is a long, tough, tough game.”

To Kwan’s point, the Guardians have run into at least a little bit of bad luck during this week-long skid against the Tigers and Rockies. Over the last week, the quality of contact resulted in a .247 expected batting average and a .369 expected slugging percentage. In reality, the Guardians posted a .205 average and a .306 slugging percentage.

“I think that’s the beauty in it, really. It’s a small sample size,” Kwan said. “You can’t put too much stock in it. I feel like we kind of did that last year, too. We started off a little slow and then things picked up. That’s part of it.

“It’s April. It’s cold, nobody’s really happy with that, so just kind of understanding what that is and just keep going.”

Kwan is the perfect example of how over aggressive the Guardians have become at the plate. He started the season leading all Major League hitters in pitches per plate appearance. Now, he’s fallen to 19th on that list.

But the Guardians aren’t rattled. They’re still rotating between playing cards, playing basketball on a mini hoop, playing Mario Kart or even ping pong before the games. The club knows it’s only April. Maybe with a new hurler on the mound on Wednesday, the momentum will move back in their favor.

“It’s the beautiful thing about playing 162,” catcher Mike Zunino said. “It doesn’t take much to get it going and when it does, it’s usually contagious.”