The Tribe That Refused to Hit

 

I read a stat yesterday that the Guardians are currently last in the majors in OPS, runs, RBIs and home runs, and 28th in hits. This, the contact team of the 2020s, so they said last postseason. In their WAR leaders are only three hitters, and all of them [Gimenez, Ramirez and Straw] are resting on their defensive numbers to lift WAR at the moment. 

This is a team that specifically added power hitters in the offseason, like Mike Zunino and Josh Bell, and neither are really doing anything. Zunino will have the occasional crazy power hit and the do absolutely nothing for a month, this is how he's been his whole career and expecting him to change now is insane. Bell absolutely needs time to acclimate to a new team, that's why his Nats numbers last year were so good and his Padres numbers were so bad. Yes, he's still got 16 RBIs, but he's only hit 3 home runs, which isn't ideal for a guy who's gotten up to 37. Jose Ramirez leads the team with 4 homers, but...we all know he can do better than that.

And plus you have all these guys who were so good at contact hitting last year, like Gimenez, Oscar Gonzalez and Steven Kwan and they're all doing extremely okay. Gonzalez is back in the minors, I assume waiting for another Oscar to usurp him. Gimenez, as crucial as he his to this team, is hitting .214 and has as many strikeouts as he does hits. At the very least Tyler Freeman's been excellent since being called up, but his fellow young Guardians like Gabriel Arias and Will Brennan aren't doing great. Basically, nobody's hitting, and teams like the Tigers, who are hitting, are taking advantage of that. This Guardians team, which was expected to lead the division, is now in third, and below .500.

What is keeping this team in the conversation is its pitching, which is still pretty good. Bieber, Quantrill and Logan Allen, the new one not the one they got from the Padres, are solid so far, and to their usual standards. Clase is still excellent in the ninth, and Stephan, Morgan and De Los Santos are excellent relief pieces. Yes, not many runs are getting by this team, but they're also not scoring many runs either, and this strategy is only gonna work for so long.

I reckon someone will heat up in the lineup and turn things around. It can't be this bad for the whole season, something will have to turn around. Hopefully it's not just wishful thinking.

Coming Tonight: Surprisingly the member of the homegrown Milwaukee triptych that's doing the best right now.