CLEVELAND -- It was almost two weeks ago when Steven Kwan spoke to local media, expressing how last year’s disappointing season put a chip on everyone’s shoulders. It was a big factor in the hot start the Guardians came out to this year. But he also added: “Of course, things are easy when you’re winning. We’ll see what that looks like as the year progresses.”

It was easy for the Guardians when they stayed in the win column. Now, the team has dropped six of its last nine games, including a 6-0 loss to the Angels on Friday night at Progressive Field. But just two weeks ago, almost everything was seamless to navigate.

When the starting pitching would falter, the bullpen would step in -- no matter who was called upon. When José Ramírez was quiet, Josh Naylor was unstoppable. When the top of the order wasn’t scoring, the bottom of the lineup figured out how to push runs across the plate. But now everything is going cold at the same time.

Everyone is still learning how Stephen Vogt operates as a manager, including Vogt himself. He hasn’t had a difficult stretch like this just yet and he’s had to watch his team come out flat after playing four consecutive extra-inning games from Saturday through Wednesday before turning around and playing in Cleveland following a 3 a.m. ET arrival from Houston on Friday morning. None of these are excuses. The Guardians are the first to say that. But they are realities that have impacted the performance of a club that had been on a roll.

So, how do they address this? Step one with Vogt is always communicating with his players.

“I think you look back at the last week, we played four playoff games,” Vogt said before Friday’s series opener. “We're having conversations with players and asking them, but not making a big deal about it, but just pointing out, ‘Hey, you guys went through a lot on this road trip. That's OK. But we leave that behind and here we go. Let's start over fresh today.’”

Step two for Vogt will be making sure his players are learning from their mistakes.

The Guardians know where their problems are right now. When Kwan ran into outs on the bases against the Braves, Vogt said they wanted to make sure they had an open conversation to learn from his mistakes. There’s also no secret that the starting rotation has been underperforming and the club’s pitching coaches have been working on ways to prioritize getting their starters deeper into games to help spare the bullpen without putting too much pressure on the rotation.

“The last thing we want them to do is to press,” Guardians pitching coach Carl Willis said. “They just need to be the best version of themselves and not try to take pressure to, ‘I've got to replace Shane [Bieber].’ We’re not looking for that.”

The infield coaches have been working with Brayan Rocchio on making the routine plays and not rushing when he’s transferring the ball from glove to hand -- especially on backhanded plays. Gabriel Arias and Tyler Freeman are constantly working with the outfield coaches to get more comfortable in the grass. Everyone knows that Bo Naylor has been having a difficult time, as he snapped an 0-for-10 stretch with a single in the fifth inning against the Angels to bring his average and OPS up to just .179 and .550, respectively.

Being a former catcher, Vogt can obviously relate to the struggles Naylor has been having, trying to put as much focus on being prepared for the defensive side of the game while also attempting to be a key contributor to the offense. How do you help a young backstop figure this out? Do you put your arm around him? Do you just need to give him a nudge?

“You put your arm around him and say, ‘Hey, welcome to the big leagues. These things happen, dude. Got to get past it,’” Vogt said. “But how do we learn from it? … It's a combination of the two. It's putting your arm around him and also saying, ‘Hey, everybody goes through it. It's all good. Get the next one.’”

As Vogt runs into his first hurdles, the new skipper can start to build a foundation of how to grow from these moments.

“You never want to lose,” Vogt said, “but you're going to at times and it's frustrating. And we're going to work to get back on track tomorrow.”