The Cleveland Guardians series against the Houston Astros in July turned their season around and helped clinch them a spot in the playoffs. 

To tell the story of how the Cleveland Guardians clinched a spot in the 2025 MLB Playoffs, we have to go back to some of the toughest moments of the season. 

Yes, the 10-game losing streak.

For a quick refresher, the Guardians dropped 10 consecutive games from June 26 to July 6 earlier this summer. Their offense looked flat, recording a slash line of .166/.235/.263 over that stretch.

Plus, in the middle of that run, Cleveland found out that they’d be without one of the members of their starting rotation, as Luis Ortiz was placed on leave as part of a still ongoing gambling investigation.

At that time, it was useless to even think about whether Cleveland would make the postseason.

Nothing was going right for them, and it felt like things could get much worse as the Guardians traveled down to Texas to take on one of the best teams in MLB for the last decade, the Houston Astros.

There’s no reason the Guardians should have won that series. There’s no reason it should have been close, and in many ways, it wasn’t as Cleveland swept all three matchups against their American League West foe, completely turning the tide of their season.

This was the series in which Brayan Rocchio showed signs he may be an everyday option for the Guardians in the second half of the season. 

David Fry came up clutch, extending Cleveland’s lead in the series opener with a home run that barely left the park.

Angel Martinez slugged a game-winning grand slam in game two of the series, then started off the finale with yet another homer. 

Jose Ramirez had a multi-home run series to top it all off. 

When the Guardians traveled to Houston for this series, no one was thinking about the playoffs or that their three games against the Astros would have massive implications for whether the team would be playing October baseball in 2025.

Yet, looking back on it, those three games, which snapped a double-digit losing streak, on a week in early July, are what helped the Guardians clinch a spot in the playoffs.

Plus, after this improbable series win in Houston, the Guardians went on to post a 44-26 record the rest of the way. 

Because Cleveland won that series, they secured the season series over Houston, and the Astros were the team chasing the Guardians in the playoff hunt heading into the final season of the series. 

When Cleveland punched their ticket to the playoffs on Saturday, it also ended Houston’s hopes of getting back to the playoffs. 

If anything, this series, which came following one of the worst stretches of Cleveland baseball over the last few years is proof as to why it’s important to play all 162 games.