RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesThe Cleveland Guardians traveled down to Florida over the weekend to take on the Tampa Bay Rays in a three-game set.
Tampa began the series with the best record in the American League, and the Guardians found out why as Cleveland was swept in the series, with two of those games being fairly lopsided.
While there are several factors that contributed to the Guardians dropping three straight to the Rays, and now five losses in a row, the key reason came down to Cleveland's lack of offense.
After all three games had been played, Cleveland had only scored three runs. All three of those runs came in the first game, while the Guardians were shut out in the final two.
On Sunday, not only did the Guardians fail to score a run, but they also had only one hit: a leadoff double by Steven Kwan, who was the first batter of the game. After that, Tampa Bay pitched 8.2 innings of no-hit baseball.
All of this happened with both Angel Martinez and Jose Ramirez being off the injured list and back in the lineup .
Manager Stephen Vogt acknowledged Cleveland's offensive struggles, saying, "We need to work. I mean, again, we want to continue to get better."
Vogt also credited the hit team's struggles to the Guardians facing three quality starting pitchers over the weekend, Shane McClanahan, Nick Martinez, and Drew Rasmussen
"We faced three very good arms here. There's no denying that that the the Rays have some really good arms, and we saw three of their best, if not their three best," continued Vogt.
While, yes, it is true the Guardians saw some quality pitchers, Cleveland's lack of offense continues to be a concerning trend for the team and should be their top priority at the August 3 trade deadline.
From this point forward, Vogt believes he just needs to continue to look ahead and look for more consistency at the plate.
"We just got to keep our heads down. We got to keep working, and there's a lot of season left. We've shown at times that we can be a really good offense. We just need to find some consistency."
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