The Cleveland Guardians offense is hitting some pretty low lows’
By Chad Porto
The Cleveland Guardians are not having a fun spring.
They say April showers bring May flowers, but man, there is nothing growing in the Cleveland Guardians garden at the moment besides strikeouts and four-hit outings. It’s not exactly what people were expecting or hoping for with the recent additions of Mike Zunino and Josh Bell, and while the Guardians are far from “done”, the haggardly slow start isn’t helping anyone dream of October baseball.
The offensive output being low is pretty par for the course of Guardians baseball under Terry Francona, historically the team starts rolling in June and that will likely be the case this year, as it has in years past but man, this is a rough start, even for a Francona-led team.
Made worse is the fact that over the last 10 games, the Guardians have only mustered 19 runs. Shockingly, the Guardians are just 4-6 in those last 10, highlighting how good the pitching has been to keep the team in most of those games.
The Guardians have scored 19 runs in their last 10 games.
— Zack Meisel (@ZackMeisel) May 10, 2023
They have scored three runs or fewer in 65% of their games this season. For reference, they scored three runs or fewer in 44% of their games last season, when they were a middle-of-the-pack offense.
At 17-20, things aren’t the best they could be, but it’s also important to note that things could be far worse. The Guardians are only 2.5 back from first in the AL Central, and the Detroit Tigers are further ahead in their rebuild than maybe people expected. So the division isn’t going to be the same cakewalk it was last year. But what can be done?
The Cleveland Guardians need to just weather the storm and be patient for now
Unless you have a guy who has absolutely fallen off, like a Zach Plesac, you let them work out their issues in baseball.
The Guardians have a lot of guys not playing as well as they have historically. You have to be patient while they work through their slow starts and slumps because some of them are just too good to give up on.
You really can’t expect any type of changes until June at the earliest. That’s when we’ll know if this is a slump, a cold start, or just a regression in skills. So sadly, Guardians fans, you’re just going to have to be patient as this team figures things out.
Come June, it’ll be time for the hard questions and decisions if things don’t improve.
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