Guardians are down to one last ‘crazy’ chance to try to win the AL Central: Paul Hoynes
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- This is not going to be easy. Impossible hasn’t entered the building, but it’s knocking on the door.
If the Guardians had lost to the Twins on Wednesday, center fielder Myles Straw said it would have taken something “crazy” for them to defend their AL Central title and get back to the postseason.
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They didn’t lose, but it’s still going to take something left of center for the Guards to reach October in what almost certainly is manager Terry Francona’s final year.
Just what that may entail has yet to be revealed. In the meantime, Will Brennan and Gavin Williams took a more traditional approach to beating the Twins, 2-1. Brennan drove in two runs, while Williams and four relievers limited the Twins to two hits. The Twins won the first two games of this showdown series with 28 runs on 31 hits.
Don’t be fooled.
The Guardians were baseball’s feel-good story last year. This year they’re a team of singles hitters who overachieved last year.
Every calculation in baseball’s mass of gambling-induced projections has Cleveland already eliminated. ESPN gives them a 2.1% chance of catching the Twins.
The Twins’ magic number to eliminate the Guards is 17. The Guardians and Twins have 22 games left to play.
Those are simple but serious numbers.
If the Twins split their remaining 22 games to finish 84-78, the Guardians would have to go 18-4 to win the Central outright. If they went 17-5, they’d tie the Twins at 84-78 and win the division on the tiebreaker courtesy of Wednesday’s victory.
It doesn’t matter if you’re Mr. Vegas or Mr. Peoria, Ill., those are long odds.
“Today’s win was huge,” said Straw. “It could be the difference in our season. We like to fight. We think we still have a chance, and we do.
“If the Twins would had won this one, we would have had to do something crazy. I think we still do, but I think we’re pretty confident. We rally off each other. We just have to play the rest of the season and see how it ends.”
The Guardians boarded a charter flight on Wednesday evening headed west. They have a four-game series against the Angels, who said no mas when they put six players on waivers at the end of August.
Then the Guardians play three against the Giants, who are 2 1/2 games out of the third wild card spot in the National League.
The Giants in interleague play are 13-5 against the Guards.
The Guardians are an annoying team. They haven’t been on a hot streak once this whole season because they don’t score.
José Ramírez, their best player, has been slumping since Aug. 1. Josh Naylor, their top RBI man, missed August with a strained right oblique. The starting rotation that carried them last year has spent most of the season on the injured list.
The front office couldn’t decide if it was in or out. The Guardians traded Amed Rosario, Aaron Civale and Josh Bell just before the Aug. 1 deadline. Then they spent August acquiring veterans Kole Calhoun, Ramon Laureano and three of the pitchers the Angels put on waivers -- Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Matt Moore.
If it made fans scratch their heads, think what it did to the players in the clubhouse.
But on Wednesday, Brennan made a sliding catch near the left field foul line in the second inning to steal a hit from Willi Castro and keep a runner on second base. Straw followed that with a diving catch in left center field against Ryan Jeffers to end the inning.
“Straw’s catch saved the game, for sure,” said Brennan. “Everything had to go perfect. Perfect route, quick off the jump and then he had leap in the air. I’m sure we’ll be hearing about it from him for the next few days, but it was awesome.”
In the bottom of the inning, Andrés Giménez, whose season has not gone as anticipated, doubled to start the inning. Brennan, one out later, singled him home for a 1-0 lead.
Giménez and Brennan did it again in the fourth, this time on a Giménez single and stolen base and a Brennan double. Emmanuel Clase pitched the ninth for his 38th save to tie Jose Mesa for fifth place in franchise history with 104 saves.
This team has not quit, regardless of what Monday’s 20-6 loss looked like. They just haven’t won enough.
“We like our guys,” said Francona. “We appreciate the way they go about their business. Sometimes we don’t play quite as good as we’d like or things happen. . .They give us a pretty honest effort.”
And in the first week of September, after never being more than three games above .500, they still have a chance. It’s a crazy, swing-from-the-floor chance, but it’s still there.
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