Focus for Cleveland's batting woes: Getting back to 'Guard Ball'

NEW YORK -- At the outset of this American League Championship Series against the Yankees, the pathway for the Guardians’ best shot to reach the World Series was laid out by manager Stephen Vogt.

“We need to make things happen,” Vogt said. “Running, bunting, putting the ball in play. We run the bases hard. We don't assume anything's over. That's how we've gotten here.”

That’s the identity these Guardians have taken on this march to becoming one of the final four teams left in the postseason. They apply pressure on the other team by any means possible to secure an early lead and hand it off to their dominant back end of the bullpen that regularly shortens games.

Through the first two games of this ALCS, the Guardians have failed to execute that formula. Instead, they’ve had to deal with the pressure of New York building up early leads in both contests, thus leading to the undesirable 2-0 hole they find themselves in after falling to the Yankees, 6-3, in Game 2 at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday.

As left fielder Steven Kwan put it, Cleveland needs to get back to playing the “Guard Ball” brand of baseball that has become the theme of its season.

What exactly is “Guard Ball?”

“Fundamental baseball,” said Kwan, who extended his franchise-record postseason hitting streak to 12 games with a single in the fifth inning. “Make the plays that we’re supposed to. With runners in scoring position, get the guy over. Just fundamental stuff to be able to [win] the game.”

Part of “Guard Ball” is sound defense, which Cleveland lacked on Tuesday with a pair of costly errors that gave way to two runs for the Yankees.

Another key component is scoring first. The Guardians were 59-16 in the regular season and 2-0 in the postseason when scoring the first run of the game as opposed to 33-53 and 1-4 in the postseason when conceding the first run, which was still good for the fourth-best winning percentage (38.4%) during the regular season in such scenarios.

Of course, it gets even more difficult when the deficit is multiple runs, which has been the case so far in this ALCS. In each of the first two games, the Guardians have faced deficits of at least three runs. They were 9-50 when trailing by three or more runs in a game during the regular season and are now 0-4 in the postseason when down at least three.

The problem has not necessarily been getting runners on. On Tuesday, Cleveland had its chances against Yankees ace Gerrit Cole by loading the bases with one or no outs in the fourth and fifth innings yet came away with only two runs on a Josh Naylor sacrifice fly and an RBI fielder’s choice by Will Brennan. Overall, the Guardians went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded a total of 11 runners on base in Game 2 after going 1-for-4 and leaving five runners on base in Monday’s Game 1 loss.

“We have guys with runners in scoring position,” Brennan said. “We have opportunities, and we’re just not cashing in. We’re not getting those big hits in the timely manner that we have in the past. All we can do is just keep getting guys on out there and the opportunity will arise for us.”

How do the Guardians create those better opportunities? Perhaps it starts on the basepaths. Their 148 stolen bases in the regular season were tied for fifth most in the Majors, yet they’ve swiped only one bag -- a fifth-inning steal by José Ramírez on Tuesday -- in these two games.

Part of the lack of steals could be a product of the limited opportunities and falling behind early, but through these two games, the Yankees seem to be the more aggressive team on the bases by frequently going first to third on base hits.

If the Guardians are going to play themselves back into this series when they return home to Progressive Field for Game 3 on Thursday, they could also use another hitter not named Kwan or Brayan Rocchio to get it going. The quartet of Ramírez, Josh Naylor, Lane Thomas and Kyle Manzardo has combined to hit .214 (6-for-28) with just one extra-base hit, that being Tuesday’s ninth-inning solo homer off Luke Weaver by Ramírez, who obviously has the potential to be an X-factor if he can turn around what has been a relatively quiet postseason to this point.

“We get on base and make things happen,” Vogt said. “We just didn't get a big hit with runners in scoring position tonight. We're one swing of the bat away from taking the lead in that game. We're one swing of the bat from being right back in it.”