After starting the season without losing their first four series, the Cleveland Guardians have now dropped back-to-back sets and have dropped consecutive games for the first time this calendar year.

The Guardians won their opening game against the St. Louis Cardinals, but found themselves on the wrong side of the next two, even though they had opportunities throughout the week.

Here are three takeaways from Cleveland’s latest series loss. 

Across the board, Cleveland’s pitching has been so good to start the season, but its series loss to the Cardinals is showing that there might be some cracks in both the depth and efficiency of the group.

Over the Guardians’ three-game set against St. Louis, Cleveland’s reliever core gave up nine runs, eight of those being earned. 

Erik Sabrowski, who has been one of MLB’s most underrated pitchers in baseball to begin the season, gave up a costly two-run home run in the middle game of the series. Connor Brogdon had a rough three-run inning in the series finale. 

Cade Smith has looked shaky at times to begin the year, and could get one out with a runner on second in the ninth, which led to the Cardinals tying the game. Tim Herrin’s wild pitch in extra innings is what ultimately ended the matchup in extra innings. 

The Guardians have no reason to ring the alarm bells yet. They are in the middle of a 13-day, no-off-day stretch, and some regression was inevitable. Still, the bullpen was definitely a standout, and not in a good way, against the Cardinals. 

Juan Brito has only been in the big leagues for a few days, and he has already learned a rough lesson about how costly one error can be in the long run. 

On Tuesday, the Guardians had a lead with two outs in the ninth inning, and Brito misplaued a ball at second base, allowing the tying run to reach, and eventually score. Cleveland went on to lose the game in extra innings. 

As Vogt said a few years back, the best thing to do in moments like this is to learn the lesson and leave the event, and that’s exactly what Brito needs to do here. 

And, again, this loss wasn’t solely on Brito; the bullpen had a few costly miscues, too, and the offense didn’t come through in extra innings.

However, it is hard to look back on that plate and think the Guardians were one away from a win, only to end up taking a loss instead. 

Ending on a positive note is only fair, considering there were some positives to point out during this series, one of which is the continued development of Angel Martinez as he puts together an early breakout season.

Martinez was 3-for-9 in the series and came with a couple of bit hits for the Guardians, too. Just a few pitches into Monday’s game, the switch-hitter slugged his second home run of the season to give the Guardians an early lead. Then, on Tuesday, he came up with a two-run RBI double to extend Cleveland’s lead at the time.

Is this production sustainable? Time will tell, but Martinez still proved he’s one of the Guardians’ hottest bats, despite the series loss. 

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