DETROIT -- Stephen Vogt quipped Thursday afternoon that June 15 was the first day he would begin looking at the standings this season. It was an arbitrary date offered by the Guardians' manager -- in tongue-in-cheek fashion -- as he remains focused on taking things one day at a time.
“I haven’t looked at the standings yet,” Vogt said before the Guardians’ series opener against the Tigers at Comerica Park. “We play 162 games, and every time you play a divisional opponent, it's a big series. We look at every game as a playoff game, no matter who we're playing.
“We know who we're playing, and they're playing really well. So we’ve got to bring our 'A' game.”
The Guardians treat every game with urgency, but this weekend’s matchup with the MLB-leading Tigers is perhaps their biggest series of the young season. Cleveland got off to a stellar start by taking Thursday’s opener, 7-0, behind dominant pitching performances by starter Tanner Bibee and right-hander Cade Smith.
The Guardians entered this series 1-5 over their past six games and six games behind the Tigers in the AL Central. Cleveland dealt with weather issues in Minnesota this week amid a 10-game road trip before splitting a pair of games with the red-hot Twins on Wednesday. Following the current series, the Guardians will welcome the Dodgers to Progressive Field for a three-game set beginning Monday.
All things considered, it’s a challenging stretch for a team looking to keep pace in the AL Central standings.
“This road trip, this 13-game stretch, is probably one of our toughest, if not the toughest all year,” Vogt said pregame.
Who better to get the ball on Thursday than Bibee, who delivered one of his best starts of the season. He allowed just three singles and one walk over his seven scoreless innings while striking out a season-high eight.
Bibee generated 14 whiffs on 43 swings (33 percent rate), both of which are his second-best marks of the season (he had 16 whiffs, 37.2 percent on April 5 vs. the Angels). This was also the third time in five starts that Bibee went seven innings.
“Even just right from the beginning, he had everything working,” Vogt said. “Credit to him and the pitching group. His delivery tonight was the best it's been all year, and then you see the results. Made a little adjustment, and he had everything working.”
Bibee said he worked on his delivery between starts with Cleveland's pitching coaches. He wanted to get it back to the place it was two or three years ago, and he felt he had been “putting Band-Aids on stuff for two years now.”
Bibee has been pitching deeper into games lately, but his strikeout numbers are down this season. His season high before Thursday was five, and he also has surrendered 11 homers (albeit nine in April).
“My delivery, in my eyes, couldn't really get any worse,” Bibee said. “Not striking people out. [I'm] obviously going deeper into games, but giving up a lot of hard contact. … I'm a person who strikes people out. That's part of my identity, and when I'm not doing that, obviously, something's wrong.”
Bibee said getting his delivery back to a place he likes is like learning how to ride a bike.
“You get a couple throws in and kind of feel it,” he said. “It's like, ‘Oh my God, that's the feeling I've been missing.’ Stuff like that. Obviously, some things are more difficult, but things that you've done before, it's a lot easier.”
The Tigers loaded the bases off Tim Herrin in the eighth on a walk, an infield single and a single that Lane Thomas appeared to lose in the lights. Smith entered and struck out Akil Baddoo, Zach McKinstry and Riley Greene swinging on 15 total pitches.
Smith said he wanted to help pick up Herrin after his tough-luck outing, and he also recognized it was time to compete. Smith understood the context of that spot without letting the moment get too big.
“You just have to slow down, right? Take a moment to breathe,” Smith said. “There are lots of circumstances where you take a step off the mound, you look around, you look at the stadium, you look at where you are. This is a big league stadium. It was a gritty, rainy night all night, but it’s still a big league game.
“It’s still a meaningful game. And the best way to do that is to take a breath, take some time and then operate from a position of being within yourself, rather than trying to do too much because the moment is meaningful.”