Cleveland Guardians Make a Statement With Perfect Road Trip

After a rough start to August and beginning to slip out of the playoff race, the Cleveland Guardians have flipped the script and quickly become one of the hottest teams in all of baseball.

Cleveland is now on a seven-game winning streak and has won eight of their last nine games, which has included sweeps over both the Colorado Rockies and now the Los Angeles Angels during its West Coast road trip.

There’s a lot to unpack in this perfect six-game set away from home, and how the Guardians won these games should make a statement and send a message to the rest of baseball that Cleveland is getting hot at the right time.

The story of Cleveland’s sweep over the Rockies was how the offense came alive and the pitching fended off Colorado’s lineup.

The narrative during the Angels series was a little bit different.

All season, the Guardians’ biggest strength has been their elite starting pitching, and it's picked up the offense. In Los Angeles, it was the lineup’s turn to have the pitchers’ backs.

Parker Messick began the series with another strong start, putting him on pace for MLB history. However, the next two games weren’t the same.

Gavin Williams gave up five earned runs against the Angels during the shortest start of his career. Joey Cantillo technically pitched a quality start, but also walked seven batters.

At one point in both games, the Guardians were down by a minimum of three runs. There were times earlier this season when that would’ve felt like an impossible task to overcome, but not in this series.

Cleveland scored a total of five runs after the eighth inning in the final two games of the series, putting together two of the team’s grittiest wins of the season.

“The last two nights have been really special for us. Those are games that we just haven't been able to complete as consistently as we'd like to,” said manager Stephen Vogt after the game.

“To come back in the ninth [inning] and steal one like that, that's huge to cap off a great road trip and an unbelievable nine-day stretch. We're going to enjoy the heck out of this off day tomorrow.”

The question looming over Cleveland all year long has been whether or not they could put all their pieces together at the same time. The stats don’t lie; the Guardians have one of the best pitching staffs in baseball and a lineup with still a lot of potential despite its drawbacks.

If this road trip is any indication of what the offense’s potential could be, Cleveland has the potential to be a dangerous team over the final month of the season.