Cleveland Guardians STUN Baseball World SWEEPING Detroit Tigers | Postseason Dreams Now Reality?

Cleveland Guardians STUN Baseball World SWEEPING Detroit Tigers | Postseason Dreams Now Reality?

Justin Lada: The Guardians have done the unthinkable. They’ve swept the Detroit Tigers. They beat Tarik Skubal. They’ve defied logic. So much so that they have broken the rea soning of Major League Baseball fans. And all they’re doing is left screaming. They can’t keep getting away with this. And you’re listening to Locked On Guardians. Jeff Ellis: You are Locked On Guardians, your daily podcast on the Cleveland Guardians, part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day. Justin Lada: Welcome on in to another fantastic episode. Lots of good things to talk about on today’s Locked On Guardians. Get your brooms out and ride them all the way to Minnesota, because the Guardians are sweeping, and apparently there’s witchcraft going on as well. This is Locked On Guardians, your daily ticket to Cleveland Guardians Baseball, because for the next half hour, we’re taking you inside the Guardians, the Majors, the Minors, the draft and everything in between. We do it every day here on the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team, your Cleveland Guardians, every day. I’m Justin Lada. I’ve been here since September of 2022. Just celebrated three years. And I spent 18 years covering the Guardians, my league farm system, providing prospect analysis and scouting reports. Jeff Ellis: I brought out the sweeper. Not the broom, but my little sweeper. For those who are longtime followers, you know this. Justin Lada: Where’s the Rally Dino? Where is he? Jeff Ellis: Rally Dino is. Justin Lada: Where is it? Jeff Ellis: He’s currently upstairs. Rally Dino. 16 and 5 since the introduction of the Rally Dino. Yep. I wanna. I’m Jeff Ellis, one of your two hosts here, one of the first people Locked On brought on when they decided baseball. Let’s do that for that. I was a national writer at Scouting247, focused on prospects in the draft. I want to thank you for making today’s episode your first listen. Today and every day, wherever it is you get podcasts, and a big shoutout to all of our everydayers. I was gonna say David. David’s like, we gotta start making shirts. I’m like, if this team makes the postseason, maybe we do have to find a way to make Rally Dino shirts. Justin Lada: I think he’s got one. Yeah. Shoutout to everydayer Anthony, too. Jeff Ellis: Who. Justin Lada: Who wants a shirt made? This is. Why not us? Why not Cleveland? Yeah. On today’s episode of Locked On Guardians, we’re gonna talk about Stephen Vogt. Can he win? Should he win Manager of the Year again? We’ll talk about the Minnesota series coming ahead as the Guardians have to be aware of a letdown, but we will first start talking about the Guardians sweeping the Tigers on the road, beating—I don’t say they beat the ace, but they beat the Tigers, and they didn’t lose to their ace. And it is literally breaking the logic in the minds of Major League Baseball and its fans. Before we jump into the fun stuff today, this episode made for you, Ross, is possible by 5-Hour Energy. Enough with boring, flavorless caffeine. It’s time to give your caffeine a flavor upgrade with 5-Hour Energy. Go to 5HourEnergy.com or Amazon today. We are running out of words. We really are running out of words to talk about how this team keeps doing what they’re doing. They had so much traffic earlier in that game against Skubal, more than they normally do, right? They had, I think they had nine baserunners against him in six innings, which is unusual for them because normally outside of Lane Thomas’s grand slam, which, you know, obviously was one of the guys not available on Thursday, they have pretty much no history of beating him. Not that recent anyway, outside of that, out of that game. So when they had that much traffic early on and Tanner Bibee was matching him, you know, pitch for pitch, at that point, I was like, they might do this. Like, they just might have a chance. And then we didn’t come out for the seventh inning. I was like, I don’t know if the Guardians bullpen has any energy left, if they have enough left to hold a lead, but I was like, they might do this. And then José Ramírez hit the home run. Haven’t gotten anything from José Ramírez this entire series for the most part, outside of the birthday walks. And he finally comes through because he’s José Ramírez. And of course he was going to at some point, especially against Detroit. Tanner again matched Skubal pitch for pitch, and the bullpen somehow had enough left. Even. Even. Well, Kobe Allard had plenty left because he hasn’t pitched in a week. But hey, you go ahead. Kobe Allard, you go ahead. You throw a high leverage situation. You know what? You’re going to be just fine. Tim Heron, third day in a row. Yeah, sure, why not? Get it done, Tim. Why not? Hunter Gaddis, you’re going to close the game out. Okay, sure, why not? My brain might be broken, honestly. Jeff Ellis: Know, and that was the thing. Like, I was like, we’re growing hair in three days in a row. That was probably the biggest blowback. My hair moment for me, just be cause, like, three days in a row is a lot to ask for a guy who, I mean, had been sent down multiple times this year, has been struggling. And especially, like, he goes out and he walks the first guy, I think he’s down like three, one to the second guy. He’s gonna walk two guys here to start and said double play. So sometimes you’re better to be lucky than good. That felt like one of those moments to me. Yeah, I haven’t looked at the, you know, the Savant statistics in this one. Like, the bigger takeaway from, for me is, like, they didn’t because school is school. You know, you knew you weren’t going to get those opportunities against their pen because he was going to go deep. They did have a lot of traffic. And then they were very specific in the attack angles. Right, like that. They were going out and trying to do a lot of matchup stuff late. And, you know, it was successful. It worked. And they swept the Tigers in Detroit earlier this year. Justin Lada: What? Jeff Ellis: They took three out of four in Detroit and then lost three in a row in Cleveland. So it seems like, hopefully that is not gonna be the case. We’re not gonna see a continuation of these two teams struggling. But even if someone like, I know we’ve had a lot of Tigers fans in the comments at points being like, oh, you’re just lucky. Tigers’ expected batting average today was .160. Like, Cleveland’s .228 isn’t great. A .160 is one of the lowest I’ve seen all year. The Tigers were not taking good cuts in this one. They were struggling. Tanner Bibee was fantastic. That’s three great starts in a row. Expected batting average of .160 is very low. And, you know, it’s a situation where Tanner and, you know, Scoobal and Bybee were both great. And against Scoobal, you know, yesterday we had a Tigers fan talk about that there were more hard hits off of Williams than the Guardians had all together. There were more hard hits off of Scoobal today than the Tigers had. Justin Lada: Like, yeah, pitch Scoobal. He did. Jeff Ellis: They had eight hard hits on Scoobal. They had four on Melton. I mean, they were hitting the ball hard today where they had five total for the Tigers, three of them from Spencer Torkelson. But, yeah, they were actually doing some relative damage. Now, he’s still Derek Scoobal, so he’s still fantastic. But then they got to Melton for the two, which, again, I was gonna bring up, like, one of the things we’ll see with some of these statements are people being like, oh, I couldn’t. I can’t. You know, if I was, it’d be great to face Cleveland. This Detroit bullpen is a dumpster fire right now. There’s no two ways around. It is a full-on dumpster fire. It is a bottom four bullpen in the second half. It might be down to bottom three bullpen again today. Troy Melton, you know, he gave up the lead. That’s where the loss is. It’s not on Scoobal. It’s on Melton because he had the. Justin Lada: Home run to Jose in September. Their ERA is 5.15, not counting today. Even so, it’s going to get worse. And their FIP is 4.91. That is 24th worst in baseball. Yeah, so. Jeff Ellis: And that’s an improvement because they were 25th. Their 25th worst FIP in baseball in the second half. So it’s actually better. Those numbers are an improvement for them relative to where they’ve been, which speaks to the levels. And yes, they’re missing Kyle Finnegan, and Finnegan’s been a fantastic addition. But the problem is, outside of Finnegan, no one else is really doing their part. So it’s Tarek Scoobal’s great. Flaherty has had his ups and downs. Like, their offense, as we saw this weekend, is not clicking on us. Batting average on balls in play matters. Batting average on balls in play matters. Like we were talking about, you know, back in May, I was like, the luckiest team in baseball is the Detroit Tigers. The unluckiest is the Cleveland Guardians. When you look at batting average on balls in play, yes, hard hit can affect that. Speed can affect that. But Detroit, we’ve seen this regression to the mean because the batting average on balls in play, you know, when you have Javier Báez and Zach McKinstry with .380 BABIPs, it’s just not gonna stay. Same thing like last year. Brett Rooker, right? Everyone’s like, oh, he had a .360 BABIP. He can do that because he hits hard. You know what he has this year? He’s got like a .310 BABIP and his numbers have. He’s still a good player. But like, no one rocks a .360 outside of Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani consistently. That regression has come hard for Detroit. And Cleveland went from being pretty much bottom in batting average on balls in play all year, like below league average, below the average. We’ve seen them being more middle of the pack. So this is just kind of a writing of some of the luck shifts. Justin Lada: I would rather be lucky than good. I know some people were like messaging. They’re like, are the Guardians actually good? And I’m like, there are some good things about them for sure. Some of it’s definitely luck. But you know what? This is the time of year you want to be lucky. You want to be lucky in September, you want to be lucky in October. And this is what, you know, the Guardians did under Terry Francona, right? They were second-half September merchants. And some people want to say luck, that’s fine. But this is a sport where sometimes you want to be lucky, and— Jeff Ellis: There’s more luck in this sport than any other sport. Justin Lada: You know, it’s just, there might just be. There might just be. And that has defied logic. I’m not gonna sing “Defy Gravity.” As much as my wife would love to hear me sing that song, I’m not gonna do it. The audience wouldn’t like that. Jeff would not like that either. But they are defying logic. How badly are they breaking the brains of Major League Baseball and its fans? We’re gonna discover that next, and we’ll talk about it. Don’t be, don’t be so sure about Minnesota. Jeff Ellis: They’re bad. Justin Lada: But you gotta keep your head up in Minnesota. You can’t have a letdown. We’ll talk about that next on the rest of this episode of Locked On Guardians. Jeff Ellis: But first, let’s talk about one of our newest sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Zipix Toothpicks. Whether you’re looking for nicotine satisfaction or an energy burst, Zipix has you covered with their nicotine and caffeine-infused toothpicks. For nicotine users, Zipix provides a discreet way to satisfy cravings in the hand-to-mouth habit when without vaping or smoking. Using Zipix can be a helpful tool as you work to reduce your dependence on vaping. 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Justin Lada: Gonna need some of those in the postseason when the Guardians get there. All right, let’s talk real quickly about how the Guardians are breaking everyone’s brain across Major League Baseball. So Jeff Passan had a great tweet on Thursday. It was an interesting tweet. He said the Guardians are a well-run organization. Then he proceeded to list all the reasons that they haven’t been, or they’re not good. But the fact that they’re also good despite these things, I think, is what he was trying to point out. People did not like that. Jeff, we have a tweet here if you’re watching on YouTube. The quote tweeted Jeff’s tweet and said they are not a well-run organization. Well, I got news for you, dude. They are. I mean, ownership and front office, those are two very different things. I think we all can agree that ownership—wish we could, they could spend a little bit more money. Should spend a little bit more money. But as far as everything else, you know, they are a well-run organization. So people can’t, I mean, this is a team that’s literally doing this every single year. I mean, look at 2021, 2023. Maybe they’re, maybe they’re every other year teams. They’re only good the year Slade Cecconi is good in September or not good in September. I don’t know. Another tweet that quoted Jeff Passan’s tweet said rewarded for playing a disgusting brand of baseball. This is the brand of baseball they’ve been playing since. Jeff Ellis: I wonder if that was a facetious like, you know, I wonder. That one felt to me like someone who’s actually like, you know, part of how we’ve taken ownership of disgusting baseball. Like that one, to me, I think might be a Guardians fan who’s in on the joke. Justin Lada: Enjoying it. Jeff Ellis: I’ll say that one. Justin Lada: Ryan said now they face a real team coming for four games. About to find out. That might be facetious too, I think—Twins. Jeff Ellis: Otherwise their brain is broken if the Twins are a real team. Justin Lada: This is a great one. They are drenched in the armpit sweat of Satan and a Viking burial ground. That actually also might be true. Jeff Ellis: No, that’s a Royals fan. That is 100% a Royals fan. That’s Matt Quatraro. Justin Lada: There in his book, they are a really well-run organization with two gamblers and cheaters on their team and literally every ounce of luck on their side. Give me a break. That is a Twins fan who just cannot stand it anymore with the Guardians. Jeff Ellis: It’s hard to be a Twins fan. You’ve won like what, one postseason series in most people’s lifetimes. It’s not easy. And then, you know, you have to sit there and deal with guys getting hurt all the time and your players being sold off, and you have to live in Minnesota, which, from what I hear, living in Milwaukee is a fate worse than anything. The only thing worse than living in Minnesota would be living in Chicago. Based on the people around me in Milwaukee, that is what they tell me. Chicago is the worst. But second worst is Minnesota. You’d be better trying to drown in the ocean than live there, according to what people—at least hearsay. I’ve never been to Minnesota, so I can’t speak to it. I can just say what the people in Milwaukee tell me. Justin Lada: These are not Jeff’s opinions. They’re not people Jeff has heard. Jeff Ellis: This is from the kids at school, middle school kids. Justin Lada: Kids are very brutal these days. Jeff Ellis: Again, I’ve never been, so I cannot comment. I would love actually to go to the Mall of America. Justin Lada: We have a lot of… We’re gonna have a lot of Minnesota fans in our comments. Jeff Ellis: You know, I would love to go to Mall of America. I’d love to go. Ijust haven’t had that opportunity. But according to people in Milwaukee, that is… yeah. Justin Lada: And how… how about this one? We got a Yankees beat writer of all people, this gave the Guardians some bulletin board material. The Yankees should spray additional champagne if they get to face the Cleveland Guardians in the Wild Card round. This is the team that just swept the Tigers on the road and managed to beat Tarik Skubal, and oh, by the way, they also beat the Tigers and Tarik Skubal in the playoffs last year and they’re… Jeff Ellis: Yeah, they split the season series against the Yankees. And again, I lived in New York for seven years and it just… I don’t know, it’s the degree of entitlement that I experienced when I was… I literally opened a bank account when I was there and part of the conversation turned to the bank manager talking about how he couldn’t wait for them to sign Grady Sizemore away from us. Like, they got CC; next it was going to be Sizemore. Like, this was just me trying to open… I’m like, this is a bank, dude. I’m just trying to open an account. Like, the entitlement of the fans… it’s crazy. Like, he saw me wearing Indian gear at the time. He’s like, “Oh, we’re gonna get Sizemore here in like two years.” I’m like, “Oh, okay. Can I get my checking account?” Justin Lada: Because they’re gonna trade Miguel Andújar and Clint Frazier for José Ramírez next. Jeff Ellis: There are great Yankees fans. I got a lot of great friends who are Yankees fans. So that’s… that’s more to make fun of that. Justin Lada: Shout out to Stacy. Jeff Ellis: Yeah, I love Stacy. Shout out to my buddy Nick from back there. Well, Nick’s a Mets fan, actually. Blanking on my gosh. I left New York in 2012. I haven’t talked to him in like five years. I’m blanking on his name. Randy was just kind of agnostic as a baseball fan, so I could say Randy’s name, but… but yeah, it’s… no, my buddy Nick, Nick Dunkley, he was there. So I got lots of Nicks in New York. But yeah, I just think that’s a weird statement for a reporter to kind of go out there and make. Like, I mean, I know technically, I guess we’re reporters. I’m talking as much crap right now as him, so maybe it’s not that weird, but I’m not like, an official, official like thing. Like, I’m having fun with it, but it’s… yeah, I… like I said, there’s… is Cleveland’s offense good? No. By any means. Is their bullpen good? Second-best FIP in the second half for a bullpen. In spite of all their struggles, in spite of the ups and downs, the bullpen’s been okay. Is the starting pitching good? It’s been really good. Justin Lada: And it’s the best in baseball this month. That’s not including today’s… it’s… they have the best FIP in baseball this month among starting pitching. And you know how… do you know how you have a good bullpen right now? The reason the Guardians bullpen actually is working is because they’re not forcing them to work a lot. Last year they worked overtime. This year the Guardians in September lead the major leagues in innings pitched by starting pitchers at 97 innings. They have the least amount of bullpen innings pitched in Major League Baseball. That’s how you have a good bullpen. When you’re a man down, the starting pitching… when your men are down, whatever, that starting pitching steps up and they take all the innings. Bybee’s throwing a complete game. Cantillo’s throwing eight innings. Son’s throwing eight innings. Gavin Williams is striking out nine in six innings. Lowest ERA and FIP. Lowest… fifth. And oh, by the way, the offense… you said the offense isn’t good. Not including Thursday’s numbers, the offense is passable. It’s a 105 WRC+ in the month of September. That’s why this is working. This is the formula for the Guardians. This is what they’ve been using for over a decade now. Have an offense that’s middle of the pack. Maybe you get to 10th once in a while. Great starting pitching. And then you have some good relievers, even though they’re down some of them. The starting pitching is great again. And the bullpen has not had to work as hard. That’s why this works. Jeff Ellis: Yeah, the bullpen, the starting rotation is taking care of business and working overtime right now. And the bullpen is benefiting. Justin Lada: They’re not working overtime. They’re making up for last year. So there’s no overtime here. To be clear, they are making up hours from their sick time last year. Jeff Ellis: But yeah, and then I think with the offense, what have we talked about all year? That, you know, it’s been… guys aren’t stepping up. Right? Like Kyle Manzardo is the guy for big change this season. José has been… let’s say, had a great day today, but kind of a little bit of a slide. He had a lot of walks on his birthday. Justin Lada: You know, what a great day today. Jeff Ellis: Below average bat. I… I know we’ll talk about multiple guys who really stood out. But, you know, one of the guys stepping up late is a guy that we’ve been harsh on. That’s Jon Kenzie Noël, and he had a great day. Brian is struggling and he had a great day today. Like, there’s a lot of guys doing their part. Like, that’s what they needed, is other guys to finally get something. Justin Lada: Yes. There is one guy I want to point out that was big in this game that, well, we have talked a lot about on the show. We’ve been hard on Tim too, but he came up in a big w ay on Thursday’s win, and we’ll also get into the twin series ahead and try to avoid a letdown there. And we’ll talk about Stephen Vogt, whether or not he deserves Manager of the Year once again on the rest of today’s Locked on Guardians. PrizePicks. Man, this is the place you want to get all your picks. Justin Lada: Right, of course. Daily fantasy app where you are making the right call. You can actually pay off by making that call. We’re making decisions every day still with Stephen Vogt, but Stephen Vogt should avoid Prospect. Just to be very clear, being right here, though, actually lets you cash in. So if you’re going to be right once in a while, it’s probably not with your wife or your partner. But if you’re gonna be right, you want to do it on PrizePicks. If you’re into football and it’s back, PrizePicks is the simplest and fastest way to get in all the action. Pick more or less on two to six player projections, and it takes your Justin Lada: projections, your guesses, into real prizes. Less than 60 seconds. Josh Allen, more than two and so many passing yards, I think so. He was having a good night against the Dolphins last I checked, and they also have really fun max discounts like Patrick Mahomes. Is he going to throw under or over half a passing yard? I think yes. And guess what? That’s one of your projections. If you get another one right, you cash in. That’s how easy it is on PrizePicks. Download the PrizePicks app today. Use code LOCKDOWNMLB to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Justin Lada: That’s code LOCKDOWNMLB for $50 in lineups after your first $5 play. PrizePicks. It is good to be right. We are all going to need a little bit of a boost of energy this weekend and these last 10 days of Major League Baseball. 10 games for the Guardians, anyway, and we need some caffeine. You’re gonna do it with a flavor upgrade. 5-hour Energy shots deliver tasty caffeine and 17 bold flavors. Each 2-ounce shot packs a caffeine premium of a 12-ounce cup of coffee, plus B vitamins, nutrients, zero Justin Lada: sugar, zero crashes. These things are portable. They’re good. They taste great. Tiny shot. I use them occasionally on weekends, and I cover high school football on Fridays when minor league baseball is over. So I’m working double time for that as well. And I gotta stay up late and watch those games, and we’re gonna be watching a doubleheader on Saturday. So guess what? I’ll be probably having some caffeine on Saturday as well. I’m gonna do it without having to put boring, flavorless caffeine in my gullet. It’s time to give your caffeine a flavor upgrade with 5-hour Energy shots. Get Justin Lada: the favorites you love or be bold and try something new in the store, online at 5hourenergy.com or Amazon today. Very quickly, just want to say thank you all for being part of the Locked On Guardians community. We love each and every one of you. Shout out to Time Traveler. He had a comment the other day talking about how he’s grown to love the show, and then he had a comment the commenter had another day about how we got something really special going on here. So we really appreciate that. Make sure you’re hitting the bell on YouTube so you can be part of the specialness on Justin Lada: YouTube so you can get all of our episodes, reaction videos, the squad show, which will be in your feed today on Friday if you’re listening to this. And make sure you auto-download on audio always. So that’s the best way to support the show and get it wherever you get podcasts. I did not realize, Jeff, you’ve been telling me this for a while. You’ve been saying it on the air for a while about how bad, oh bad Minnesota is. We’ll get to that in a second. But there’s one player who had a really big impact in this game that I think we overlooked, and that’s Angel Martinez. Jeff Ellis: Yeah. Justin Lada: Did you have Angel Martinez walking twice in this game, Jeff? In any game for that matter? Jeff Ellis: I don’t know if I had him walking twice in a month alone. Justin Lada: Again, worked a walk, worked a walk off Derek Scubal, and he worked a walk in front of José Ramírez when he hit the home run in the seventh inning. If he doesn’t get on base there, they might put José Ramírez on, but because Martinez was already on, they had to pitch to José. That was a huge walk in the seventh inning by Angel. Jeff Ellis: Yeah, no, I agree. It’s, and I will say, like if people want to call us haters, like this was definitely a game for us to drink the haterade or, you know, get our comeuppance. So everyone appraised. It’s like I’ve said many times, like I want Tanner Bibee to be exactly what everyone thinks he’s going to be. I more than anyone else, I want to be wrong on him. Martinez is also just he’s a fun, exciting athlete. Like because of that excitement, people are rooting for him even when he has had his struggles. I mean, heck, Gabby had another hit today. Did he have a hit every game in this series? Like it was definitely a lot of the guys who have taken the most hate this year had some pretty big impacts as well as José. Aaron. Yeah. Heron. Yo, good call there. Yeah, like Slade Cecconi. Slade Cecconi. They cut you. Justin Lada: You texted me I don’t want to go to Tim Heron third day in a row. And I said, oh, I don’t know about going to CJ Kayfus here, but guess what? They worked out. Jeff Ellis: Yeah. And here’s the thing. It was a perfect matchup situation because we know Cary Carpenter. I almost, I don’t know why I thought for a second that wa sn’t his name, but it’s like he’s got a 130, I think a 135 WRC+ against righties and a 65 versus lefties. That’s like Miles Straw territory. So Miles Straw did most of his time here was in the 60s. So that’s why they left in Zabrowski yesterday. That’s why they went and got those lefties. And this is where I’m going to be foolish because my ADD and my dyslexia, I usually get turned around stuff. Riley Green is a lefty as well, right? So it’s like, you know, he doesn’t hit well against lefties. So they went out and used the lefties against the right guys, and when they pulled in Heron, they went and got… Not Wenzel Perez because I think he was already in. They went and got… Why am I blinking? Not… I keep thinking Phillips, but that’s not… But they got their other lefty bat, and you know, this is a heavy platoon team with the Tigers. But you know, the bullpen took care of it. They were great. Justin Lada: All right. So the Guardians face the Twins this weekend. The Twins are 4 and 12 in the month of September. The Guardians are 13 and 4. These two teams could not be going in more opposite directions right now. The Guardians, I don’t wanna… I don’t know for sure. I feel like they’re pretty motivated. All I have to do is look at that Yankees reporter tweet saying that the Yankees would be popping champagne before they even face the Guardians in the playoffs. But I just want to be careful of emotional letdown in Minnesota. This was a very tightly well-played series that had you gripping the dashboard pretty quickly and pretty heavily. And now you go into Minnesota for four games in three days and you get Pablo López on Friday against Logan Allen. That’s not the best matchup yet. Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober on Saturday, two pitchers that have historically given the Guardians fits because they both throw great changeups. And then you got Richardson, who you know is whatever. But I don’t know. The Twins are going in a very bad direction. They’re not a good team this month. They got so far the White Sox; you got to keep that there. Like I don’t want to sit there and say they have to win four because sweeping a doubleheader is hard. But you kind of have to. You kind of have to. And it’s… make no mistake, this is going to be difficult. The Twins would love to pop the Guardians’ bubble. They would love to knock them down and ruin their excitement about the end of the season here because that would be kind of the best thing for them this year. Especially their fans too. We know their fans would love it too if they ruined the Guardians’ postseason comeback. And the Guardians themselves have to be careful of the emotional letdown too, because like I said, they expended a lot of energy in the series. The bullpen is going to be a little bit gassed. So they’re going to need big outings this weekend from Logan Allen, Parker Messick, Slade Cecconi, and Joey Cantillo. Got to keep it going, you know. Jeff Ellis: Agreed. I was gonna pull up some stats, but FanGraphs is apparently down, so that’s not gonna work. But yeah, I think the one thing I’ll say is for all of their struggles, you know, or although there could have been many points this year where it’s been a letdown, I think they know that every game is a playoff game. I’m not as concerned overall because I feel like they just… they know that there is no room to let up like that. This isn’t a situation where, like the middle of the year where you might look past someone. I think they are fully looking at every single series you get. You just gotta treat every game like it’s postseason because right now, you know, the problem for them in general is that they’re struggling. And this Minnesota team, you know, Byron Buxton and Austin Martin, who was a player that I really liked in his draft year, have been fantastic over the last month. Justin Lada: Draft pick? Jeff Ellis: Yeah, yeah, he was. Luke Kichholz, who I’ve never been super high on, has been solid. Trevor Larnach’s having a good year. Royce Lewis has found his swing. Like they do have some really nice offensive pieces right now. And as you mentioned, they’re facing some good starting pitching that have had some health issues this year. So for all of their struggles, I don’t think it’s going to be a cakewalk. But I think much like what we talked about with the Tigers, the big thing with the Twins is getting into that bullpen because they traded away their entire bullpen. So, you know, it’s all about trying to get into that bullpen and kind of seeing what you can do. It’s… it’s very similar. I think the Twins do… I could be wrong in this case. And again, I can’t check because FanGraphs is down. But, you know, I believe they might have the worst bullpen in the second half. I believe that is what I saw when I looked at it earlier this week when I was looking at Detroit’s data. Justin Lada: So they have the 27th worst bullpen by FIP in September, I can tell you that. And the second worst bullpen in baseball in September by ERA. By the way, the Yankees have the worst bullpen by ERA in September. Jeff Ellis: Yeah. Justin Lada: You know, they shouldn’t be popping that champagne just yet if their bullpen’s not good. Jeff Ellis: And it’s a lot of guys like, you know, Genesis Cabrera, who was great a few years ago, who they’re trying… Thomas Hatch went over to Korea, Japan. He’s now part of their pen. Former high picks. Justin Lada: There’s a lot of names I don’t know here. Travis Adams, Cody Lawyerson. Oh. Here’s a question for you real quickly before we run out of here. We’ll have to pus h Stephen V’s topic off to Monday. Which will be more appropriate if they come away with three or four wins in Minnesota? Who’s the 27th man going to be? Because I’ve been looking at the roster, you know, everybody gets 27th man on. Or I guess in this case, it’ll be the 31st man because it’s September. Jeff Ellis: Yeah. Justin Lada: Everybody gets an extra player for the double header. The only guys in the 40 that could be called up are John. It won’t be John Means. John Means is going to start for Columbus this weekend, so it’s not him. The only options are Doug Nikhazy, Franco Aleman, or Matt Crook. Jeff Ellis: Can I throw another name at you? Justin Lada: Yeah. Jeff Ellis: Has Austin Peterson had a recent start? Justin Lada: So he pitched in relief of John Means on Sunday. He piggybacked John Means. He’s scheduled to go Friday. They could skip him on Friday night, and we’ll see what happens. And keep your eye on Minnesota. Yeah. And they have an open 40-man spot, so. Jeff Ellis: And they’re gonna have to add him in the off-season anyways. Justin Lada: Yeah, it would not. I don’t know. I’m not really sure. I mean, no matter who they call up for that extra spot, if it’s a reliever, it’s gonna be a guy you don’t want pitching unless they are up by a ton of runs or. Jeff Ellis: Yeah, there’s not a reliever worth getting. And Peterson being a command-control specialist who’s, that’s really good. I think he’s probably. If you are in the playoff hunt, don’t want Doug Nikhazy to. I want Austin Peterson 100. It’s Peterson. Like that’s not even like. Justin Lada: Or the best arm you. You call up. Do you call up Franco Aleman? I don’t know. He did have a good. Jeff Ellis: The other day. But it’s like I think you need someone you can start with. With some of the bullpen usage being high of late. Like, I think you want someone who can give you four to five innings. Like you need that especially with the double header. So I think it’s got to be a starter. And again, I can’t look at the data on my end because I can’t get to work. But it’s like the Twins hit lefties relatively well. I want to say it’s not a huge weakness for them. So going to Nikhazy isn’t like a huge advantage. Lefty, righty. So I think again, doesn’t throw strikes. Justin Lada: So. Jeff Ellis: Yeah. So I really think you got to pay attention if Austin Peterson doesn’t pitch on Friday, it’s going to tell you a lot. Justin Lada: Yeah. Yeah. The Twins are average against lefties. 99 WRC+ against the right hand. Jeff Ellis: Which is pretty good. A 99 actually is good against lefties. It’s probably upper half of the league. Justin Lada: I would bet 98 against righties. So they’re pretty mid. It doesn’t make a difference who you bring up for them. So I don’t know. I am definitely putting my hat in the Austin Peterson bucket. Jeff Ellis: But the thing is, I’d like to see. Justin Lada: I don’t think it’s. I mean, you don’t want to pitch. So that’s the thing. You want me to call it up, but you want to pitch. Unless for some reason you’re. Which they could be up by a lot. If you torch their bullpen, you could be up by a lot. And that could be the reason to use Peterson. Jeff Ellis: I mean, don’t you kind of need another starter with the double header? Justin Lada: No, because they’ve been using a six-man rotation. So you have. Jeff Ellis: Is it gonna mess things up with how long Alan’s been inactive? Justin Lada: Well, no, they skipped him on purpose. Kobe Aller didn’t pitch for like 12 days and he just came out and fired. Jeff Ellis: And Junish didn’t pitch for seven and gave up a two-run home run. Like it always takes a nervous you guys say for a while. Justin Lada: Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, Zach Kent hasn’t pitched in forever, but you don’t want him pitching either. But he might have to. So I’m still banking on Peterson as the call-up because they have the spot open. But again, you don’t really necessarily want to see him unless you’re up by a lot of runs. So we’ll see what happens there. All right. We’ll be back on Monday. We will talk Guardians-Twins four games in three days. We’ll have updated playoff math scoreboard watching. You want the Mariners to beat the Astros this weekend. You want the Red Sox to lose this weekend. You want the Tigers to lose in theory, too. And you want the Guardians to win. That’s where we’re at. We’ll talk about Stephen V’s Manager of the Year candidacy on Monday or Tuesday as well. If this all goes well, we still have to get to Josh Hartle. We still have to get to the Assistant GM of the Guardians who’s in play for a job with the Washington Nationals. So much to come. Unlock on Guardians. We hope you are sticking with us. This is fun, and we are never out of things to talk about. Jeff Ellis: Thank you all for joining us. Remember to rate and review. Download daily. It helps do your part. Also, in terms of how close are we to 5,000 subscribers? Apparently my internet’s gonna run super slow here at the end. Justin Lada: Something. Yeah. Jeff Ellis: So thank you all for joining us. Remember again, I already said that part. Thank you all. And go, go Guardians, go. And it’s 129. For those who are curious.

The Cleveland Guardians sweep Detroit Tigers, ride momentum into crucial Minnesota series. Can they maintain their hot streak and solidify playoff position?
Justin Lada and Jeff Ellis break down the Guardians’ impressive sweep, highlighting José Ramírez’s clutch performance and Tanner Bibee’s stellar pitching. The hosts analyze Cleveland’s September surge, boasting MLB’s best starting pitching FIP this month. They preview the upcoming four-game set against the struggling Twins, discussing potential pitching matchups and offensive threats.
The show reacts to fan reactions to Cleveland’s success, and look ahead bullpen management strategies, and possible roster moves for the doubleheader.

0:00 Intro: Guardians sweep Tigers, defy logic
5:30 Guardians’ offense shows signs of life
10:57 Guardians breaking brains across MLB
16:33 Starting pitching leads Guardians’ success
21:27 Angel Martinez’s key walks impact game
26:26 Preview of crucial Twins series ahead
31:39 Potential 27th man callup for doubleheader

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