The Cleveland Guardians have had an oddly uneventful start to their 2026 season. Through 26 games, there hasn’t been a winning or losing streak longer than two games, and that streak continued on Wednesday afternoon as the Guardians unfortunately got shut out 2-0 by the Houston Astros.
Houston has had one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball thus far, and that staff faltered again on Tuesday when Cleveland walloped the Astros 8-5, but the Guardians were unable to follow up on that momentum on Wednesday and wound up dropping the rubber match to lose the series.
Cleveland’s lineup got chewed up by Peter Lambert and his 6.30 career ERA, as he went six scoreless innings with eight strikeouts to earn the victory. It was a step back for a lineup that was starting to wake up over the last week or so, and the Guardians will now look to warm the bats up again as they hit the road to take on the Toronto Blue Jays.
Couldn’t capitalize and took the L#GuardsBall pic.twitter.com/OoE10hDrcb
— SleeperGuardians (@SleeperGuards) April 22, 2026
Yordan Alvarez cranked his MLB-leading 11th homer in the game, a two-run shot which served as the only offense in the game. On the bright side, Tanner Bibee was able to go six innings and give up just the two runs, while the bullpen dealt a much-needed three scoreless innings after struggling quite a bit over the past few weeks.
Bibee has now gone six innings in consecutive starts after failing to make it to the sixth inning in each of his first four starts of the year. Length has been an issue for the rotation all year, which hasn’t helped the bullpen whatsoever, but Bibee is starting to round into form like most of the other members in the rotation.
Gavin Williams is on the bump on Friday in Toronto after Cleveland’s day off, and hopefully the team can put this series behind them. Every series is a new opportunity, and with the Blue Jays struggling out of the gate and enduring a number of injuries to their starting rotation, it would be a good time for the Guardians’ bats to get cooking again.
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