CLEVELAND -- The Guardians got back to .500 on Wednesday when they finished off a series victory over the Rockies with a 5-0 win at Progressive Field.
Cleveland will go into its Thursday off-day -- when the MLB Trade Deadline is slated for 6 p.m. ET -- with a 54-54 record. It’s their first day off since the All-Star break.
“This has been quite the 13-game stretch coming out of the break,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “Travel for three days. You play a hot doubleheader [in Kansas City]. We have a tough day on Monday as a team.
“This group's resilient. They more than earned this off-day tomorrow, and I’m really excited to see them again on Friday.”
The Guardians have gone 8-5 since the break ended, over a 13-game stretch that, on July 18, general manager Mike Chernoff called “a period of high significance and importance” for the club.
Cleveland’s front office wanted to see how the Guardians performed ahead of the Deadline (when they had four straight series against teams with losing records) before picking one lane versus another in terms of selling or buying.
Cleveland is two and a half games back of the Mariners (57-52) and Rangers (57-52) for the final American League Wild Card spot.
The Guardians are in striking distance to make a postseason push over their final 54 games, but their strategy also may have changed since Chernoff’s declaration nearly two weeks ago. They will be an interesting team to follow on Thursday.
The tough Monday news that Vogt alluded to included an 8-6 loss to the league-worst Rockies (28-80), when relievers Hunter Gaddis, Cade Smith and Tim Herrin allowed five runs across the eighth and ninth innings. The bullpen’s poor performance came in the aftermath of closer Emmanuel Clase being placed on non-disciplinary paid leave earlier in the day due to an ongoing MLB investigation.
The Clase situation could have ramifications on Cleveland’s pathway at the Deadline. He was the Guardians’ top trade chip, in the event of the team selling, but he will not be moved given his situation. Meanwhile, folks such as Steven Kwan and Shane Bieber have increasingly been in the rumor mill this week.
“[You] try not to really think about it as much as possible,” Guardians designated hitter David Fry said of the Deadline. “It's kind of weird being on an off-day. Everybody loves to talk about it. In all my years of being a part of it, even through the Minors, everybody loves to talk about it and be like, ‘All these things are gonna happen,’ and then usually not much actually happens.
“So I just try to think nothing’s going to happen, and if something does, we'll see. But hopefully we keep what we got.”
Fry helped launch the Guardians back to .500 on Wednesday. He hit a two-run homer off lefty Kyle Freeland in the first inning, which gave spot starter Kolby Allard an early lead as Cleveland pitched a bullpen game.
Allard allowed one hit and struck out five over 3 1/3 innings, and Matt Festa, Jakob Junis, Nic Enright, Gaddis and Smith allowed two hits and one walk the rest of the way.
Cleveland tacked on another run via a Brayan Rocchio sac fly in the fourth, then padded the lead with a two-run eighth thanks to RBI knocks from Kyle Manzardo and Carlos Santana.
Allard has been a Swiss army knife for the Guardians this season, pitching in a number of roles from starting to high-leverage relief to multi-inning relief. He noted the clubhouse’s focus this week has been on the field.
“I think it'd be naive to say that nobody hears anything and you don’t think about it a little bit,” Allard said of the Deadline. “But I think at the same time, just as players, all we can do is put the best foot forward we can that day. And I think that's kind of the attitude I've been taking, and I think it's the attitude the clubhouse has been taking, as well. Try to stack as many wins as we can.”
That mentality is shared by their manager.
“We know it's out there,” Vogt said of the Deadline. “We know it's coming. We're always where our feet are. When we're together, we're together, and we can't control everything outside of that.
“… For us to come back out these last two days and play the way we have [after Monday], it just speaks to how much this group loves each other and is resilient.”