Three observations from Guardians series loss to Detroit

1. Guardians trouble against the bullpen

The Cleveland Guardians seem to have settled into a habit that is not particularly good, that habit being not scoring off the bullpen. Once Detroit's starter came out of the game it came with a sense that Cleveland was not going to do much of anything. The Guardians were held scoreless by the Tigers bullpen as they managed just five hits in 8.1 innings. Cleveland also managed to walk twice, but nothing of consequence came from it. Things will have to change if the Guardians want to be able to compete with opponents far better than the Detroit Tigers.

2. James Karinchak was serving up batting practice

Tigers hitters were more than ready for the offerings of James Karinchak as Detroit rocked him in both of his appearances. First it was Karinchak giving up a walk-off home run to Riley Greene to end the first game of Tusday's doubleheader. The very next day it was the light-hitting Zach McKinstry who took Karinchak deep for only his 13th career long ball.

The start of 2023 has been very up and down for Karinchak. There are times when it looks like nobody is going to touch one of his pitches again. And then there others where he is giving up a lot of hard hit balls with some turning into home runs. Cleveland needs Karinchak to find some consistency and perform at the level that he has shown to be capable of in the past.

3. Waiting for the offense to come back to life

There was a two-game stretch early this season where it seemed like the Guardians offense was going to turn the corner and become one of the better units in baseball. Cleveland scored 18 runs across two games in Seattle and Oakland, but have not quite been the same since then. The Guardians offense has been held to three or less runs in nine of 14 games since then. The team is 6-8 over this span, only averaging just 3.6 runs per game. Removing the two extra-inning games from the equation sees their record drop to 4-8 and only pushing across 3.2 runs.

The reality is this offense needs to get hot for an extended stretch. Putting up nearly one quarter of their offense in a two-game span when there have been 17 other games is not acceptable. While there are more than few teams who have an offense that is less potent than Cleveland's, the Guardians need to work their way back up to where they belong and not continue to be among the also-rans of MLB.