Greetings again, everyone.

In case you missed the previous post, I used to write FanPosts that broke the season up into 6 sets of 27 games. These sets served as a sort of micro-overview of the seasons and to determine where the team was in relation to making the playoffs. My last season of doing this was 2016 where I had determined that a pace of Run Differential (RDiff) was the most useful way to track progress. I missed it and came back. You can find my summary of Set 1 here. Apologies for the lateness of this post, right as the Guardians finished set 2 I caught pneumonia and was pretty out of it for a week. Nonetheless, here we are.

Goal

The goal in a 27 –game set is to finish 15-12. This results would give a team 90-wins on the season and in the AL Central, the division title and a playoff spot. A record of 16-11 would give a team 96 wins and be in the running for best record in the AL. Records of 14-13 and 13-14 would result in 84 or 78 win season. So as you can see, in six 27 game sets, there is 4-6 win difference between AL Champs and waiting for next year. I always like to set the goal at 90 wins because that will comfortably get us to the playoffs.

Set 2 Series

Set 2 takes us from April 28 until May 27. The 27th game fell on the first game of a three game series against the Rockies. It started with the final game in a three game series against the Braves (1) and a road trip series against Houston (3). We returned home for a home stretch against the Angles (3) and our first meeting with division threat Detroit (3). A road trip to the Chicago White Sox (4) and the defending World Series Champions Texas Rangers (3) is followed by a home stand against division rival Minnesota (3) and an interleague series against the Mets (3). The set is wrapped up by a return to the West Coast to finish the season series against the Angels and moving a bit back east to face the Rockies (1). We finished by going to Denver for a 3-game series, but only the first game is counted in this set.

Conventional baseball wisdom wants you to go .500 on the road and win 2 of 3 at home. So for these 27 games, series records of the following is what we aim for:

Atlanta

The Rubber match of a pretty close series with NL Pennant favorite Atlanta was the second extra inning game of the series. The Guardos got out to an early 2-0 lead behind an Andres Gimenez RBI single and a wild pitch scoring Bryan Rocchio. The Braves scored once in the bottom of the fifth, but Cleveland went up 3-1 in the top of the 7th behind the hottest player in the American League Steven Kwan. Kwan is hitting well above.300 with an OPS of .829. He is absolutely blistering the ball with a different approach and early returns are positive. A stellar bullpen for the Guardians has a rare misstep with Hunter Gaddis allowing two runs in the bottom of the 8th. So rare that the last time it happened was the day before when Hunter Gaddis allowed two runs in the bottom of the 8th. Gaddis has found new life after being moved to the bullpen and he has his two blown saves in two games, so it’s time to see if his performance was smoke and mirrors or if he needs to retune. A road loss starts the Guardians at 0-1 for the set.

Houston

Pre-season this was circled as one of the measuring stick series for the Guardians to see how they face against real competition. However, as we entered the series, Houston is absolutely floundering. The Astros tagged Carrasco early in game 1, but the Guardians came roaring back to tie the game in the 6th, only to lose in extra innings behind another Hunter Gaddis loss and I am officially down bad on him. The Guardians win Game 2 behind a solid performance by Triston McKenzie and the golden bat of Steven Kwan. Kwan is on an absolute tear. His approach is leading to a high on base percentage but he’s also not just setting the table but setting the table by being in scoring position. Another extra inning game, this time a win, giving 4 extra-inning games in a row. Guardians drop the rubber match 2-8 on a "let’s please just get home". They finish the series 1-2, and are 1-3 in the set thus far.

Los Angeles Angels

The Angels come to town for a three game series and after an 6-0 loss, we’ve kind of reach the point where I’m concerned about some players. Our SS position seems bad. Rocchio had a hot start but has cooled and I don’t know what to make of Arias. Right when I’m ready to abandon all hope he makes a play or has a hit that has me right back to believing in him. Bo Naylor is officially in a slump, and I’m not concerned but something has to change. I feel like Will Brennan is better than his numbers indicate. We have some other players off to cold starts, Jose being one of them. I feel like he’s about to start getting hot, but who knows. Our SPs are showing progress, with Bibee and McKenzie having about two good outings to one bad one. After the Atlanta series loss and the Houston series loss, a 6-0 loss to the terrible Angels feels terrible. On top of that Kwan strained his hamstring and is moving the DL. Nonononononononononono! The hottest player in baseball is going to miss like 6 weeks. My dreams are over. I am tired of the doom and gloom Cleveland sports fan. I am determined to have a different outlook. The Guardians would win 7-1 and 4-1 in games 2 and 3 and as bad as the past week felt, they are 3-4 for the series, which is crazy.

Detroit

The first look at the Tigers, who I am legitimately scared of, in a weekday series. A sour taste in we get to see Kyle Manzardo because of the Kwan injury, but we also get to see Vogt face his first test. A cooling off after hot start with a blow to your lineup via injury. And a young prospect in his first appearance with a lot of pressure on him. Against a division rival and a threat to the title. If this doesn’t get you excited, then you’re a Yankee fan probably. We win a first close contest 2-1, lose the second 11-7, and win the third 5-4. Two victories over the Tigers I will absolutely take. Manzardo went 0-7 with 5 SOs in his first two games, then got his first hit on a pinch hit in the third game. 1-8 with 5 strike outs. Hopefully just jitters. Meanwhile, we have a problem with finding a leadoff hitter to replace Kwan. Estimated time out is 4-6 weeks, so this will be tough. Clase picked up his 11th save in game 1 and a win in game 3. Gaddis bounced back and Sam Hentges made his return from the DL. Our bullpen is absolutely on fire. We have Pedro Avila who it seems only serves to play mop up when are getting crushed, which is not a lot. We then have Scott Barlow who can bridge mid innings but is just outside the circle of trust in high leverage situations. Then we have Herrin, Sandlin, Gaddis, Hentges, Smith, and Clase. Honestly we can run them from inning 4-9 and not allow a run. This makes Vogt’s job tremendously easier. We let the Tigers go and are now 5-5 for the set through ten games. With everything going on, a 14-13 or even a 13-14 set would amazing. Footnote: David Fry is absolutely torching left handers. The Home Run he hit off Chafin was art.

Chicago White Sox

The very bad Chicago White Sox come to town for a four game series and the Guardians return to my least favorite form of "playing to the level of your competition." There is nothing to like about these games. Remember back when they started 3-1 against Oakland and everyone was dumb and said stuff like "they’re only good because they beat a bad team, waaaa ughhhhhhhh barf." And I said "good teams beat the crap out of bad teams, this means they are good." Well, these games mean we are bad. The loss of Kwan is very much felt. Rocchio is at the Mendoza line, Florial more like Floundering, Laureano is effin abysmal. Pitching wise, Carrasco, McKenzie, Allen are all sort of showing they are barely even #5 starters. Man this is rough. Manzardo, a jittery guy in the plate, made contact on most of his ABs, and has 1 single and double to show for it. The first three games were just awful and man the team let loose the pressure in game 4 by smoking the terrible CWS 7-0 like a good team should do. We are about halfway through the set, and sit at 6-8. Just trying to tread water at .500 till Kwan gets back. Maybe we make some moves at Memorial Day.

Texas

The Guardians fly down to Texas to face the defending World Series champs. No one really thinks Texas has a shot at repeating this year, but they are being managed by Bruce Bochy and while not doing well in a vacuum, the AL West is legit terrible this year. So they have a shot at being AL West Champs, so I’d like to see Cleveland do well against playoff teams. Cleveland continued the offensive onslaught from the last Chicago game, winning the first two games 7-0 and 7-4. They drop the third game 0-4, but winning a road series against a possible playoff team while scoring a bunch of runs is refreshing. For the first time this set, their RDiff is positive at +1 at the end of game 3, it had shot to +2 then +5 after games 1 and 2 respectively. The bullpen continues its dominance and we are seeing signs of heating up from Jose Ramirez and Tyler Freeman. Josh Naylor continues on his tear and David Fry is demanding that he play every day. I have no belief that we found any sort of diamond in the rough for a 28 year in his second season. I am enjoying Fry on the level of Lonnie Chisenhall in 2014. If you can remember ten years ago, Lonnie was lights out for the first half of 2014. He had a 9 RBI game, a 3 HR game, dude was blasting everything in sight. No one really thought this would sustain, but it was a long enough flash to feel confident about him for the next few years and he served out his time in Cleveland as like a 1 War player who locked down RF when healthy. I don’t know that Fry would be that (or worse or better) but I don’t think we found Barry Bonds. At 28, it’s hard to see him improving at all, and statistically, decline is inevitable. But he demands to see more ABs now. Manzardo is 3-37 with 10 strikeouts. Not great, Bob. However, of those 10 Strikeouts, 5 were in his first 7 ABs. Not including his first 7 ABs, he’s 3-30, with 5 Strikeouts. That’s 25 ABs where’s he made contact. An adjustment has been made.

Minnesota

Division rival and hated Minnesota comes to town. Trivia time – what is the only city in the US with all big four teams (MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL) that has not had a championship in the 21st Century. It’s Minneapolis. Look at my smile. That’s nice. The Guardians silenced all the critics from Minnesota with a dominating sweep of the Twins. Cleveland pitching shut this team down. Minnesota’s best offensive inning was off Pedro gonna be DFA’d Avila in what should have been an 11-0 win in Game 2, instead of 11-4. My favorite moment of the series was game 3, after an absolutely boneheaded 9th inning by the Guardians, including a should have been out play by Rocchio and a drop by Clase and a what the hell are you doing Josh throw, Minnesota tied the game. After Gimenez gets on in the bottom of the 9th, the Twins intentionally walk Josh Naylor (smart move) and Will Brennan takes the first pitch over right field for the walk off. Sweep of the Twins. 11-9 on the set so far. We’re doing phenomenally well without Kwan.

New York Mets

For the first time since he was traded away, Francisco Lindor plays in Cleveland again. He got a pleasant ovation. When asked what he misses most about Cleveland, he says "winning." Well, sir, the Guardians will show you what that’s like. He’s been not good for NY this season and since the trade is not the offensive player they were maybe expecting, but he’s still amazing at defense. I enjoyed him while he was here and I wish him well. I hold no ill will towards him for being unable to sign a long term deal here. People gripe and moan about the small payroll, but the reality of the matter is that Cleveland’s population has been in steady decline since 1950, and it’s not turning around. Compare to Atlanta, which has been skyrocketing in the other direction. Atlanta has taken advantage of this by building not a stadium, but are sprawling center that captures all the revenue. It is next to impossible to pay players without that revenue stream. It makes me unhappy, but it’s reality, so all the Dolanz are cheap talk is just dumb. What is not dumb is sweeping the Mets and adding to their misery. 14-9 on the set and we did it. We could lose out the set and we treaded water effectively. Manzardo went 3-7 with 3 doubles this series. A pinch hit in the Twins series, and he has a four game hitting streak with 1 strikeout. This is a very good sign.

Los Angeles Angels

The team finishes off the set with a West Coast visit (LA then COL, even though COL isn’t the West Coast). We wrap up the season series with the Angels in a 3-game series. Going back to the last game of the abysmal White Sox Series, The Guardians are 9-1. So hot right now. They kept the hot streak going by sweeping the Angels to have a 9 game winning streak. Jose Ramirez in on absolute fire right now. Josh Naylor has cooled and I would say is officially in a slump, though I do not know how long it will last. David Fry is smoking the ball. Manzardo continued his streak with two more hits in three games. I honestly thought we would see more of him at 1B to maybe get loose, but he has primarily been used as a DH. He has been a late inning sub at 1b but has started only one game there. Clase earned his 17th save. He was untouchable in this set. He has 8 saves and allowed no earned runs. Basically the other team has 5 maybe 6 innings to score and then it’s over. Our bullpen is disgusting. We roll into Colorado at 17-9 with one game left in the set. Almost one third of the way through the season and the Guardians have won 36 games. 36 wins on May 26. In 2023, Guardians won their 36th game on June 23, moving to 36-39. Their RDiff for the set is +26 and for the season it’s +73. Every +10 in RDiff is one win above .500. Thus, the pace is 88-90 wins on RDiff. And with a 36-17 record, it’s 108. This team is good.

Colorado

Only the first game of this Colorado series counts, and I was excited to see Josh Naylor in Coors, but I forgot that our pitchers are there too. Coors is a hard place to play and unfortunately we ran into Charlie Blackmon deciding he wanted to do everything and they drop the last game of the set, but who cares. 17-10 for the set is amazing considering we lost Kwan, lost a 4 game series to the terrible White Sox, had a West Coast trip, and our long awaited call up got off to a slow, slowwwww start. 36-18. Best in the AL Central. We’ve passed enough tests. We have identified needs – SS and SP. We have a manager who has shown he will get creative with lineups to get ABs to people. One third of the season in the books with two sets of 27 games and I am loving this team.

Conclusion

The last time I did this, I tracked records and run differential. I tried to do a Run Differential graph but I can’t get the image to load. So just imagine two lines, one a standard "should be here pace" in the Cleveland Blue and one "we are actually here" line in Cleveland Red. And the red line is way above the blue line. And you see it and go YAY baseball! That all happened. To reasonably expect the playoffs, Cleveland needs to have a season RDiff of +100. In a 27-game stretch, that averages out to about 16 to 17 RDiff. The Guardians are at +71 through the first two, where 32-34 was the pace.

I’m going to highlight three areas that stood out most to me:

Most valuable change from set 1: David Fry. He was an early obvious candidate for platoon splits because he kills lefties, but Vogt slowly gave him chances against RHP and he has answered the call. He is absolutely crushing it. The hype train is real and this is not a case of JER-RY! Get this guy a doctor because he is sick.

Please get them off my team: Florial and Arias. There’s still something there, but man I’m ready to move on. I’m tired of this terrible terrible terrible good great ok terrible back and forth. When Kwan comes back I want Florial gone. Between Brito, Schneemann and Tena, I don’t need to see anything more from Arias. Please just go.

MVP: Emmanuel Clase. I could easily say the entire bullpen with a shout out to Cade Smith and Nick Sandlin, but Clase has been disgusting. Jose Ramirez is of course always in the conversation, but Jose only hit 10 more home runs than I did in this set. But Clase allowed the same number of earned runs I did in this set. And he threw 192 more pitches than me. Against real hitters. Not no one and doing nothing. Amazing.

The talk about this team being a fluke is only haters. They are good. They will win the division. They should trade prospects to help flesh out the roster. 2024 will be a fun rest of the year. See you in 27 games.