The Cleveland Guardians are officially a playoff team.
However, they still don’t know their next opponent or even whether they will get to play at home.
With that in mind, Tim Stebbins of MLB.com shared all possible scenarios for Stephen Vogt’s team:
“There are a few scenarios that could come to pass. If the Guardians win Sunday or the Tigers lose, Cleveland will clinch the division and host Detroit next week in a best-of-three series. The Tigers would be the No. 6 seed, in that scenario. If both the Guardians and Tigers win Sunday, the Red Sox will be the No. 6 seed, by virtue of Detroit winning the head-to-head tiebreaker over Boston. The Red Sox would come to Cleveland for the best-of-three series, in that scenario. If the Guardians lose and the Tigers beat the Red Sox on Sunday, Detroit will clinch the AL Central and No. 3 seed. Cleveland would be the No. 6 seed and face Detroit at Comerica Park next week. Boston would be the No. 5 seed because it holds the tiebreaker after winning the season series over the Guardians, 4-2,” Stebbins wrote.
Needless to say, the best scenario would be to stay at home and host the slumping Detroit Tigers at Progressive Field.
The Guardians took five out of six games from the Tigers in the past couple of weeks, helping secure a trip to the playoffs after looking like one of the worst teams in the league months ago.
This team should feel extremely confident about any potential matchup they could face.
The Guardians are the hottest team in all of baseball, and it was almost impossible to believe this team would close out the season on such a high note, especially considering they traded Shane Bieber and lost both Luis L. Ortiz and superstar closer Emmanuel Clase to sports gambling investigations.
Stephen Vogt will put the ball in Logan Allen’s hands for the regular-season finale against the Texas Rangers.
The Rangers don’t have anything to play for in the final game of the campaign after failing to make the playoffs, but they would certainly love to play spoiler.
Bragging rights, honor, and individual incentives will always be at play.
Hopefully, the Guardians will stay as focused as always, and they won’t take them lightly just because the Rangers should already be thinking about next season.
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