CLEVELAND -- The sellout crowd at Progressive Field on Saturday was clad in red and full of juice, buzzing with anticipation even before first pitch as playoff baseball returned to Northeast Ohio. A week’s worth of anticipation had built after the AL Central-champion Guardians spent the week with a first-round bye in the postseason.
The Cleveland faithful showed up on Saturday. The Guardians’ offense did not.
The Guardians lost, 3-0, to the White Sox in Game 1 of the AL Division Series on Saturday, while struggling to muster much of anything offensively. Against five Chicago pitchers, Cleveland tallied three hits and five walks, left seven runners on base and finished 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position.
In all best-of-five postseason series, teams taking a 1-0 lead have gone on to win the series 116 of 160 times (73%). In Division Series with the current 2-2-1 format, teams taking a 1-0 lead on the road have gone on to win 35 of 48 times (also 73%).
In other words, Cleveland has work to do, and fast. It can’t afford another offensive showing like Saturday in this best-of-five series.
The Guardians finished the regular season in the bottom third of MLB in several offensive categories, including runs per game (4.19, 24th) and team OPS (.696, 26th). However, the production was night and day over the final two months, certainly after the acquisitions of Jo Adell and Nathaniel Lowe before the Trade Deadline.
From Aug. 3 on, Cleveland ranked eighth in runs (232) and tied for ninth in OPS (.731).
Saturday looked more like the first four months of the season.
The Guardians didn’t log a hit off White Sox opener Hagen Smith, who tossed 2 2/3 scoreless innings. He walked three to load the bases in the third, but lefty reliever Bryan Hudson got Chase DeLauter to line out to left field to end the threat.
Walks by Lowe and Austin Hedges, and a double by Travis Bazzana, loaded the bases with two outs in the fourth. Brayan Rocchio lined out to right field to end that threat.