DETROIT -- With the final two weeks of the regular season upon us, the Guardians are operating with a high sense of urgency.
Prior to Tuesday’s series opener against the Tigers at Comerica Park, manager Stephen Vogt announced that the Guardians had shuffled their rotation for this week’s critical three-game series against the American League Central leaders. Gavin Williams and Tanner Bibee were each moved up a day, and they'll start Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.
Williams will square off against Jack Flaherty, and Bibee will face AL Cy Young Award favorite Tarik Skubal in Thursday’s series finale.
Lefty Logan Allen was pushed back as a result, and he is now expected to start this weekend during Cleveland's four-game series against the Twins at Target Field.
Because the Guardians have operated with a six-man rotation this month, Williams and Bibee will not be pitching on short rest. Williams’ last start was Thursday against the Royals, and Bibee’s was Friday against the White Sox.
It will be best-on-best over the final two games this week. Vogt noted that “a lot of factors” went into the decision.
“It's the matchup with Detroit, and then obviously moving Gavin to [Wednesday] gets him three starts until the end of the year,” Vogt said. “We played with a lot of different things, but with the six-man rotation, they all would have had six days' rest.
“This still keeps [Williams and Bibee] on that five-day rest the same turn.”
The Guardians’ season is on the brink. After winning Tuesday’s series opener in Detroit, 7-5, in 10 innings, Cleveland is 11-4 in September and has a 79-71 record. The Guardians are 2 1/2 games behind the Red Sox (82-69) for the final AL Wild Card spot and 5 1/2 games behind Detroit (85-66) in the division.
The Guardians and Tigers face off five more times through the end of the regular season. Cleveland has an opportunity to make up ground, but it has to win a lot over the next two weeks.
As Vogt noted, moving Williams up ensures that he'll start three times over the season’s final 12 games beginning Wednesday. The big right-hander has emerged as the Guardians’ steadiest starting pitcher during his stellar second half.
Williams has a 2.28 ERA in 59 1/3 innings over 10 starts since the All-Star break. He has a 2.60 ERA in 104 innings over 18 starts since June 1 (tops among Guardians starters who have made at least 10 starts), and he leads the team with 13 quality starts this season.
“He's been our most consistent guy the last four months, it seems like,” Vogt said.
Bibee has had an up-and-down season, but he has perhaps begun to find his form. The right-hander (who entered the season as the club’s ace) has a 4.44 ERA in 170 1/3 innings over 29 starts.
But Bibee has gone six innings in each of his past four starts (his first such stretch this season). He's recorded a 3.54 ERA in 28 innings over that stretch, including his first career shutout on Friday against the White Sox.
“He’s feeling back like himself,” Vogt said. “The action on his pitches is more like Tanner. We’ve talked about Tanner a lot this year. Obviously, it's been an up-and-down year, but he's really had good ones sprinkled in there throughout the whole year.
“Tanner is our guy, so we really like the way he's been throwing the ball.”
One potential underlying aspect of the rotation shuffling and pushing Allen back is how well the Tigers have hit left-handed pitching this season. Entering Tuesday, Detroit ranked first in MLB in wRC+ (118) against southpaws.
While Allen is expected to pitch in Minneapolis, lefty John Means does not appear to be an option to come off the injured list to make his Guardians debut.
Vogt noted that Means (who is recovering from June 2024 Tommy John surgery) came out of his Sunday rehab start with Triple-A Columbus feeling good physically. But the lefty “more than likely” will make a seventh rehab start on Friday with Columbus.