The Cleveland Guardians keep losing games and jeopardizing their chances of advancing to the postseason. Their second half has been one to forget, and they have fallen well below .500, at 60-65.
The lack of consistent offensive production is mainly to blame for their ongoing struggles. Things have gotten so bad for the Guardians as a group that The Athletic, in a recent exercise in which they examined what has gone wrong for every team in the league, had to list the entire offense as a unit when discussing Cleveland.
“What happened to: The offense. Listen, the Guardians have never been the hallmark of a good offense. But 2026 is a new low, even by Cleveland standards. Only one team finished Sunday with a lower OPS than Cleveland’s .682 mark. Ditto for hitting with runners in scoring position, a place where the Guardians have struggled mightily, to the tune of a .670 OPS,” Johnny Flores Jr. wrote.
OPS measures on-base percentage and slugging percentage, which are, coincidentally, the two things the Guardians are worst at. Their lineup has no punch or power, and getting on base can be a challenge sometimes. They are fifth in walk rate at 9.7 percent, but they don’t hit enough to take advantage of all those baserunners, as they have the fourth-worst batting average in the league.
Additionally, their issues hitting with runners in scoring position are well established by now. It’s hard to consistently score runs when you leave so many people on the basepaths. The Guardians’ offense can be comically bad.
Per Flores, the silver lining is that the Guardians have 12 accessible games to wrap up this month, against the San Francisco Giants, Colorado Rockies, Los Angeles Angels, and Kansas City Royals. “If that’s not enough to get your offense rolling, then I don’t know what will,” he said, and he has a solid point. Those are some of the worst pitching staffs in the league.
The Guardians are entering do-or-die territory. If they want to have a chance at making the playoffs, they need to start winning now. The division might be a pipe dream by now given the way they are playing, but they have a shot at one of the Wild Card spots.
They need to start playing with urgency, though.
NEXT: Insider Raises Major Concerns About Guardians' Postseason Chances
