The Cleveland Guardians lost Sunday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates 7-1, dropping the three-game series at home in the process. It was one of their sloppiest games of the season.
As a team, the Guardians had nine baserunners. Five of them were thrown out on basespaths, more than half. No team will be able to score a win playing like that.
The Guardians were overly aggressive on the basepaths, and when that happens, they will be thrown out from time to time. It’s baseball. What can’t happen is recklessness and lapses in concentration.
For example, in the fifth inning, Gabriel Arias was called out after failing to retouch second base in his attempt to advance to third base on a pickoff throw.
Arias had another blunder on Sunday, this time on defense. He failed to cover third base on a throw down to third from Patrick Bailey.
Arias can have his moments, but seems to disconnect from the game too often to be relied upon. It has cost the Guardians on occasion.
“I understand it’s frustrating to see-saw back and forth and not looking at the big picture, but I think it’s hard to excuse some of the mistakes they’re making. You can’t chalk it up to rookie mistakes. These are just not rookie mistakes, guys. These are things that you can’t have, and I don’t know who’s to blame for that. This team can’t afford to be doing that with a healthy Jose Ramirez, especially with the version that we got in the first half. They gotta clean that up first and foremost,” analyst Justin Lada said.
Sunday’s game was not exactly the most accurate representation of ‘Guards Ball’. On the contrary: it was an ugly display full of mistakes and mental blunders. With their current offense, they won’t get very far playing like that.
Luckily for Cleveland, they have team star Jose Ramirez already working hard to return from his hamate bone surgery. Once he comes back, the left side of the infield will start playing better defense, and his offensive contributions can’t be overlooked either, even though he is sporting a slightly disappointing 111 wRC+ this year.
Cleveland is still just one game behind in the AL Central, so there’s still plenty of time to regain their identity and start playing better baseball overall. They need to clean up their act, though.
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