{"id":667690,"date":"2026-04-07T04:52:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T04:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/667690\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T04:52:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T04:52:23","slug":"steven-kwan-gets-back-on-track-despite-guardians-loss-to-royals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/667690\/","title":{"rendered":"Steven Kwan Gets Back on Track Despite Guardians Loss to Royals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CLEVELAND &#8211; It was a cool night at Progressive Field, not just because the first pitch temperature was 47 degrees, but because the <a href=\"https:\/\/roundtable.io\/sports\/mlb\/guardians\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Cleveland Guardians;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Cleveland Guardians&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Cleveland Guardians<\/a>\u2019 bats once again, for the most part, froze at the plate in their series-opening loss to the Kansas City Royals.<\/p>\n<p>The Guardians only managed to get two runs across on four hits, with both of them being solo home runs. On the other hand, the Royals managed to fill up the box score with 11 hits and four runs.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>One of those runs came off Tanner Bibee, another one from Peyton Pallette, and the other two occurred with Kolby Allard on the mound.<\/p>\n<p>If there were any bright spots for the Guardians&#8217; largely quiet offense, it was that Steven Kwan finally looked like the elite version of himself and hopefully got back on track with his multi-hit game.<\/p>\n<p>Kwan came into Monday night\u2019s game with a .216\/.310\/.270 slash line. It\u2019s early, yes, but for a player who is known for being a quick starter, his numbers through the first three series started to raise some eyebrows, and not in a good way.<\/p>\n<p>The thing is, with Kwan\u2019s plate discipline and bat-to-ball skills, it can only take one game to get him back on track, and that\u2019s exactly what played out in Cleveland\u2019s series opener against the Kansas City Royals.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Apr 6, 2026; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Guardians center fielder Steven Kwan (38) is congratulated by right fielder Chase DeLauter (24) after hitting a solo home run off Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Michael Wacha (52) during the third inning at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: David Dermer-Imagn Images\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/5c07364a68c75aae3d061cdf893e7805.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Apr 6, 2026; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Guardians center fielder Steven Kwan (38) is congratulated by right fielder Chase DeLauter (24) after hitting a solo home run off Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Michael Wacha (52) during the third inning at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: David Dermer-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>In his first at-bat of the game, Kwan took a Michael Wacha fastball the other way to lead off the game with a single.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>His next at-bat came in the third inning, and Kwan, who rarely swings at the first pitch, was clearly sitting fastball, saw a pitch he liked, and gave the Guardians an early 1-0 lead with a solo home run, his first of the season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought that\u2019s the most Kwan, we\u2019ve seen Kwan tonight,\u201d said Stephen Vogt after the game. \u201cFour really quality at-bats, and some good swings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Outside of Chase DeLauter and Gabriel Arias, who left Monday\u2019s game with a hamstring injury, Cleveland\u2019s offense has been pretty flat since the start of the season. They need someone else to get it going, and that literally and figuratively starts with Kwan at the top.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully, Kwan\u2019s performance against the Royals can get him going, even though the Guardians didn\u2019t come away with a victory.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Guardians Roundtable also offers a fan community and message board. We\u2019d love to have you join us to talk all things Guardians. Click the \u201cJoin\u201d button at the top of the page to join our community for free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND &#8211; It was a cool night at Progressive Field, not just because the first pitch temperature was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,22912,135,51,2565,1383,538,55,572,5169,4,31816,667,860,2081,777,3627],"class_list":{"0":"post-667690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chase-delauter","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-guardians","12":"tag-clevelandguardians","13":"tag-gabriel-arias","14":"tag-guardians","15":"tag-kansas-city-royals","16":"tag-kolby-allard","17":"tag-michael-wacha","18":"tag-mlb","19":"tag-peyton-pallette","20":"tag-progressive-field","21":"tag-stephen-vogt","22":"tag-steven-kwan","23":"tag-tanner-bibee","24":"tag-the-guardians"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116361635301934167","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}