This one misleading stat has resulted in misevaluations of the Cleveland Guardians

With a 22-15 record, the Cleveland Guardians have gotten off to a solid start in 2025 and are showing that they are one of the better teams in baseball. Winners of three straight series, Cleveland has been able to stack wins early in the season, keeping them within 3 games of having the best record in the sport. However, this team is being treated differently than the small handful of teams with a marginally better record than them at this time, and it seems like it is for one reason and one reason only. Run-differential.

The Guardians currently have a -14 run differential, which is obviously far from ideal. Cleveland is the only team five games or more over .500 with a negative run differential, and one of two teams with a winning record to be in the negative (20-18 A's -24). This is not good company to be in, and it is understandable why some may be concerned about how this season may play out for the Guardians, but something needs to be pointed out about their run differential, which may change the perceptions of this team.

Back in late April, the Guardians gave up 31 runs in three games while only scoring seven against the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins. Being outscored by 24 runs in such a short span is a rough look and at the time, it did raise some concerns. But if those games were to be removed from the equation, Cleveland's run differential on the year would be at +10, and the conversations about this team would be very different.

Now, these games did happen and cannot be ignored, but removing the small outlier sample from the larger sample produces a result that is a more accurate indicator of a team's true talent level. Further evidence of that is the Guardians scoring 49 times compared to their opponents scoring 37 in the nine games played since.

This Guardians team is still a work in progress, and there are plenty of things that need to be sorted out between now and the end of the regular season, but anyone discounting their winning record because of their negative run differential at this time is incredibly off base. Cleveland will get back on the right side of the run-differential spectrum soon. Once they do, it is best to expect them to remain there, as this team is far too talented to continue to be outscored by their opponents for that much longer.