The Cleveland Guardians fall, 2-1, to the Detroit Tigers in Game 1 of the American League Wild Card Series. 

The Cleveland Guardians came into the 2025 MLB Playoffs fresh off the greatest division comeback in MLB history, erasing a 15.5-game lead by the Detroit Tigers.

However, it’s those exact same Tigers who are on the verge of ending Cleveland’s historic season, as Detroit won Game 1 of the Wild Card Series, 2-1.

Gavin Williams set the tone for the Guardians with a phenomenal outing for his first postseason start. The Guardians truly couldn’t have asked any more out of their Game 1 starter. Williams threw 6.0 innings, gave up six hits, issued one walk, and struck out eight batters.

Unfortunately, Cleveland couldn’t capitalize on his outing, with a couple of key mistakes coming back to hurt them.

Both of the Tigers scored were unearned. This was a game the Guardians could have, and really should have, won. 

Each of the runs Detroit scored could have easily been avoided with some cleaner defense from Cleveland, and unfortunately, that might be the biggest takeaway from the Guardians’ Game 1 loss. 

In the top of the first inning, the Tigers quickly racked up two outs, and it looked like they were getting ready to go down one-two-three to end the inning. 

Then, Kerry Carpenter singled to right field to get on base. What should have been a routine play turned into a disaster for Cleveland as Johnathan Rodriguez bobbled the ball when fielding it, allowing Carpenter to move to second base on the error.

Of course, that mistake came back to hurt the Guardians as the next batter, Spencer Torkelson, ripped a single to left field, scoring Carpenter from second, making it a 1-0 game early.

The Tigers didn’t score their next run until the top of the seventh inning, courtesy of a Zach McKinstry sacrifice bunt.

Again, this was another run that could have been avoided if the Guardians had played a little cleaner defense. 

Just two batters before, Wanceel Perez ripped a hard-hit ground ball to first base, which deflected off Jhnonkensy Noel’s glove at first base. Brayan Rocchio fielded it and, with plenty of time, threw it to first base. However, Noel was off balance and didn’t get his foot on the bag, allowing the runner to tag the bag safe. 

The play was originally ruled a hit, but was later changed to an error. 

Typically, a team can survive a miscue here and there, but not when that team is facing the best pitcher on the planet: Tarik Skubal.

The Guardians largely had no answers for the likely two-time Cy Young Winner.

Skubal pitched easily the best game of his career on Tuesday afternoon, which is saying something for his standing. The left-hander struck out a career-high 14 strikeouts in 7.2 innings of work.

Cleveland created chaos on the base paths in the fourth inning to scrape a run across following back-to-back walks and an infield hit by Gabriel Arias. Outside of that, the Guardians largely looked outmatched against the Skubal.

The Guardians even gave themselves a golden opportunity in the bottom of the ninth inning, when Jose Ramirez reached third base with no outs, and a chance to tie or win the game, but Cleveland just couldn’t come up with a clutch hit.

George Valera struck out, and Ramirez was tagged out during a run-down after a weakly hit ball by Kyle Manzardo. One batter later, CJ Kayfus popped out, ending the game.

Without those two unearned runs and costly ninth-inning blunders, Cleveland had itself in a position to win Game 1.

Now, the Guardians head into Wednesday’s Game 2 with one necessary task: win.