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Keep the Brooms in the Closet, Please!

All of a sudden, the Detroit Tigers are the American League Central’s resident experts in final at-bat victories, a role that our Guardians usually play.

Cleveland knows a few things about winning tight games. All but one of the Guardians’ nine victories this season have been by no more than two runs. First baseman Josh Bell views the doubleheader loss to the Tigers as payback of sorts.

“It’s tough, but you look at the first couple of weeks of the season, seems like we’ve won all the one-run games,” Bell said in a postgame TV interview. “Kind of puts things back into perspective. We’ve got to grind things out. No one’s going to give us anything. We’ve got to push back (Wednesday) and get a win.”

• The Guardians have played as the favorite in seven of their past 10 games and have gone 3-4 in those contests.
• Cleveland and its opponents have combined to hit the over four times in its last 10 games with a total.
• This season, the Guardians have won five out of the 11 games, or 45.5%, in which they’ve been favored.
• Cleveland is 3-2 this season when entering a game favored by -155 or more on the money line.
• The Guardians have a 60.8% chance to win this game based on the implied probability of the money line.
• Cleveland has scored 77 runs (4.3 per game) this season, which ranks 19th in MLB.
• The Guardians’ 4.02 team ERA ranks 11th among all league pitching staff.

Cleveland vs Detroit Probable Pitchers

Guardians Starting Pitcher

The Guards will hand the ball to Cal Quantrill today, who’s off to a shaky start. The right-hander has coughed up 11 runs in 15.2 innings of work in 2023, yielding 21 hits and five walks.

Quantrill has never been a big strikeout pitcher, but his K-rate this year is the lowest it’s ever been. That number sits at 5.2 per 9 innings, one strikeout lower than in 2022.

On Wednesday it won’t get any easier, as Tigers batters have hit Quantrill hard over the course of his career. Current rostered Detroit players are hitting .306 off the righty over 72 at-bats, with a .708 OPS.

Tigers Starting Pitcher

The Tigers counter with Spencer Turnbull, who’s off to an even worse start than Quantrill. Turnbull has allowed 19 hits and 13 runs over 13 innings, surrendering at least five runs in two of his three starts.

His last outing was solid against the Blue Jays however and has performed decently against Cleveland in the past. In the past, he’s held Guardians hitters to a .244 average and .366 slugging percentage over 41 at-bats.

Guardians vs Tigers Prediction

The Tiger’s current five-game winning streak is a cute story, but there’s some smoke and mirrors to it as well. Three of the five wins have come on walk-off hits, while another was a 1-0 win thanks to eight shutout innings from Eduardo Rodriguez.

Needless to say, there is no way Detroit’s getting eight shutout innings from Turnball on Wednesday, which is going to put a lot more stress on their bullpen.

Offensively, the Tigers can expect some regression as walk-off hits/home runs are not a common occurrence for this team. The Tigers have hit the third-fewest home runs in MLB (10) and have the second-worst batting average in the AL (.208). Even if their spirits and energy in the doubleheader were much higher than the Guardians, they’ll struggle to keep pace with on paper a more potent Cleveland lineup.

Pick: Cleveland Guardians Moneyline (-140), Over 8.5 Runs (-115)