CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Guardians have picked a bad time for their offense to go cold again.
Manager Stephen Vogt’s squad had one of the worst offenses in the American League before turning it on after the Aug. 3 trade deadline en route to a third straight AL Central title.
The offensive surge hasn’t carried into the postseason.
The Guardians had only four hits in Monday’s 4-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox in Game 2 of their AL Division Series. They managed just three hits in Saturday’s 3-0 loss.
The Guardians had a .231 batting average before the trade deadline, second-worst in the AL. But from Aug. 3 until the end of the regular season, they batted .255, which ranked third.
They don’t have much time to get things back on track, with Game 3 on Wednesday at Rate Field as the Guardians try to avoid getting swept in a division series for the first time since 2018 against the Houston Astros.
“We’ve done a really good job of flushing games,” outfielder Steven Kwan said. “Have the day off (Tuesday), make sure we have some good focus, but obviously, yeah, not how you wanted to finish Game 2.”
It’s only the fourth time since the division series started in 1995 that a team has had seven or fewer hits over the first two games. The others were the 2008 Milwaukee Brewers, 2010 Cincinnati Reds (who were no-hit by the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1) and Cleveland in 2018.
The Guardians leadoff hitter has reached base only twice in the two games, and the team is 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.
The Sox going with bullpen games in the first two games of the series also has put the Guardians hitters off balance.
“They made great pitches and we battled and we haven’t given any at-bats away,” outfielder Jo Adell said. “The name of the game is, ‘Who lands a pitch?’ And when they made those mistakes, we just weren’t able to capitalize maybe in the way we wanted to, but that’s part of the game.”
Adell gave the Guardians some fleeting hope in the eighth with an RBI triple to get them within one run. But then Nathaniel Lowe flied out to end the inning.
“We put good swings up (in the late innings) and that’s what we’re capable of,” Adell said. “We had a lot of those balls that — mine included, I for sure thought it was out — and it’s one of those days where it didn’t travel that way and that’s the way the game is.
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“But we’re convicted in our approach and our at-bats and we have a bunch of really good players in here, so we’re going to continue to fight.”
The Guardians’ struggles on offense wasted a strong start from Gavin Williams, whose 11 strikeouts were tied for second-most in team history in a postseason game.
The right-hander — who led the AL in strikeouts this season — struck out eight in the first three innings and became the first pitcher in franchise history to whiff five straight in a postseason game. He also had 16 pitches over 100 mph, the fourth-most by an AL pitcher in a playoff game since tracking started in 2008.
His 0-2 fastball to Munetaka Murakami in the fourth registered 101.2 mph, which was the hardest pitch of his career.
“I feel like I’ve been doing it all year,” Williams said. “It wasn’t just today. I know I’ve hit 101 a couple times this year, but could be the juices too. I don’t think I was too worried about the strikeouts. Just trying to put the team in a good position to win.”
Williams — who allowed two runs and four hits — came out in the sixth after allowing a leadoff single to Miguel Vargas. The Sox scored three times that inning off Erik Sabrowski and Hunter Gaddis to take the lead.
“We couldn’t have asked any more from Gavin other than maybe a few more pitches,” Vogt said. “He did his job and then some. That is a big-time performance by a big-time pitcher.”