Guardians' blown opportunties against White Sox could hurt them later this year

On Monday, Guardians rookie outfielder Kahlil Watson picked up his first big league hit with a clutch two-run single that helped spark a Cleveland rally. 

On Tuesday, Watson smashed his first career home run to help back another excellent start from Parker Messick. 

But both those accomplishments have been a bit bittersweet since they both came in losses. Normally, that kind of production from an unheralded rookie is the kind of thing that helps push the Guardians to a win. 

But that hasn’t been the case over the past 48 hours, as the White Sox have picked up two straight wins over the Guardians thanks to timely hitting and some even better pitching. 

Thanks to that win, the White Sox (41-37) enter today’s series finale with a one game lead over the Guardians (41-39) in the American League Central. Talk about a wake-up call. 

The Guardians can't keep wasting their chances silence the White Sox

Now, the obvious caveat to all this is that it’s still June, so there’s a lot of baseball left to be played. The Guardians also have the pedigree that comes with back-to-back division wins and a roster consisting of players who have been there before. 

But the White Sox punchy roster doesn’t care. The heroes for Chicago on Tuesday were first baseman Miguel Vargas (who hit the go-ahead home run off Messick) and starter Sean Burke (who threw 6 1/3 strong innings). 

Vargas entered the year as a bit of an afterthought, but he’s already eclipsed his homer total from last year and could end up being an All-Star. Meanwhile, Burke had a 4.22 ERA last year but has already turned in seven starts of 6+ innings. 

Chicago’s roster isn’t perfect by any means, but they’ve still found a way to scrape enough runs across the board even without Munetaka Murakami. 

On the other side, the Guardians offense has hit .191 in eight games since José Ramírez, Chase DeLauter and Angel Martínez suffered injuries that resulted in all of them going on the injured list. 

Although the Guardians have gotten the kind of ‘Guards Ball’ hits that helped push them to wins last year during their series against the White Sox, Chicago’s ability to counter those hits shows why that’s not a sustainable way to win. 

When the Guardians were winning earlier this year, they were racking up hits in bunches and getting offense from all over the lineup. And even if Ramírez wasn’t having the kind of season he was known for, Cleveland’s struggles without him have shown just how important his presence was in the middle of the lineup. 

Even if the Guardians may not be as bad as they’ve looked through the first two games against the White Sox, that doesn’t change the fact they’re now facing an uphill battle when it comes to winning back the AL Central tiebreaker. 

They’re going to need to be more consistent if they want to earn that tiebreaker back.

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