WEST SACRAMENTO -- José Ramírez is already one of the greatest players in Cleveland franchise history, and his numbers continue to bear that out. That doesn’t make it any less impressive or noteworthy when he hits a historic accolade.
Ramírez recorded his 900th career RBI on Saturday, in the Guardians’ 4-2 win over the A’s at Sutter Health Park, on a second-inning base hit. With that tally, he became just the fourth player to record 900 or more RBIs with Cleveland (since RBIs became an official stat in 1920), joining Earl Averill (1,084), Jim Thome (937) and Hal Trosky (911).
“I just want to thank God for that,” Ramírez said through team interpreter Agustin Rivero. “That’s a lot of RBIs, but also thankfully allowing me to stay healthy to be able to play that long.”
In the long run, Ramírez is putting himself in a great position to overtake Averill as the franchise’s all-time RBI leader. That’s obviously not his top priority; he said he was unaware he was so close to the 900 mark. His focus is on winning.
“I don’t think about those records,” Ramírez said. “I just want to keep adding up to help the team win. Those things keep adding up and adding up. My focus is doing more things [for the team] and playing for many more years and keep adding more of those stats.”
Consider the base hit the best of both worlds. Ramírez’s single was part of a much-needed rally by the Guardians’ offense.
Cleveland entered Saturday 6-11 in June, with the culprit being an offense that has had a rough month, averaging an MLB-worst 2.8 runs per game. Over the first 17 games in June, the Guardians scored four or fewer runs 16 times. Over their previous 14 games, Cleveland went 4-10 and hit .201 over that span.
“It’s a little bit of everything,” manager Stephen Vogt said of the offense’s issues. “We're chasing a lot. We're missing our pitch when we get it. To me, we’ve just got to get back to playing team, winning baseball. We got to get on base. We’ve got to move runners. We’ve got to drive them in when we get the opportunities.
“Everyone just needs to relax. I see a group of 13 guys that are trying to do it by themselves and then some. We don't operate that way. That's not who we are. That's never who we've been.”
While Saturday was another four-or-less output, the offense did get back to basics following those tenets, at least during a four-run rally in the second. The Guardians sent all nine batters to the plate, recording three singles, two doubles and one walk.
It was plenty of run support for starter Luis Ortiz, who threw six scoreless innings and struck out 10, tying the career high he set on April 12 this season.
“That was a vintage ‘us’ inning,” Vogt said. “You get a hit, get things going, and just keep piling on.”
Nolan Jones drew a one-out walk in a seven-pitch sequence in the second before Bo Naylor and Johnathan Rodríguez immediately followed with back-to-back RBI doubles. Steven Kwan, Kyle Manzardo and Ramírez later kept the line moving with three straight singles.
“That's the best example of what we're like when we're at our best,” Naylor said of the second. “It’s an effective team that's going to go out there, put a lot of good at-bats up and just make it really difficult for the pitcher. Really make them have to earn it. And [when] we have that from the first inning to the ninth inning, that pressure, it's really hard to handle.
“And I think that's something that this ball club has done really well when we're at our best.”
There’s still progress to be made -- the Guardians went 3-for-17 with runners in scoring position and left 10 on base -- but Saturday was a better showing. It was more in line with what we grew accustomed to seeing with the Guardians last season, when they raced to an AL Central title and reached the ALCS.
When Naylor was asked how they can get back to making what we saw Saturday a consistent part of their game, he noted it’s with a team mindset.
“There's a lot of factors that could really take away from the team aspect of the game,” he said. “But when our hearts, when our heads, are in a spot where we're doing everything with the intent of winning for the team, that's the ultimate deciding factor.”