ESPN diminishes Guardians with disrespectful headline about Tigers sweep

The Cleveland Guardians have become one of the best stories in baseball lately thanks to a magical run over the past two months that’s helped push them into striking distance when it comes to the American League Central crown. 

But just because they’re a great story doesn’t mean that they’re getting the respect they deserve. We got another example of that on Thursday when the Guardians fought to get a gutsy win over Tarik Skubal and the Detroit Tigers to cut Detroit’s lead in the division to 3 1/2 games… only for ESPN to omit them altogether from a headline about the game. 

Here’s what ESPN’s headline was for its story about the game: “Tarik Skubal has strong outing after injury scare, but Tigers swept.” 

Sure. 

New ESPN headline diminishes Guardians sweep of Tigers

Skubal returning and being healthy is a big deal considering he’s on his way to winning his second straight American League Cy Young win and the fact that he left his last start due an oblique injury, but it wasn’t a bigger deal than the Guardians completing a huge sweep of Detroit. 

The Guardians now have a 30% chance to make the postseason after spending most of September with odds that hovered around in the single-digits, and they picked up a big signature win against the Tigers and Skubal. 

For what it’s worth, Skubal did his job on the mound, as he allowed just one run across six innings with nine strikeouts. 

He didn’t get much help from his bullpen, however, as Troy Melton allowed a two-run home run to José Ramírez in the seventh inning. Tanner Bibee gave the Guardians six strong innings and their bullpen stepped up with three scoreless innings to secure the win. 

Skubal now has a 2.40 ERA in 63 2/3 regular season innings against the Guardians, and the Tigers had won his previous five regular season starts against Cleveland prior to Thursday’s loss.

It’s important to note those are regular season starts since he took the loss in Game 5 of last year’s American League Division Series thanks to Lane Thomas’s back-breaking grand slam. 

While it’s fair to have some hesitation about the Guardians’ postseason aspirations considering they only have two players with an OPS+ above 100, the past week has shown how dangerous they can be. 

At the very least, it was enough for them to earn some recognition in a headline about a game they won.