CLEVELAND -- Racking up double-digit hits, taking advantage of miscues on the bases, prioritizing small ball with sacrifice flies and bunts, making a late game comeback and witnessing an immaculate defensive play that ended with a bow. This is the version of the Guardians that Cleveland fans have been used to watching this season.

If the Guardians couldn’t rediscover this groove at the beginning of the series, it was imperative that they found it before the Royals escaped Northeast Ohio on Wednesday. Cleveland was on the verge of being swept by Kansas City in four games for the first time since June 1973. But the bats finally came alive and the Guardians managed to take the finale, 7-5, at Progressive Field. Cleveland once again has a one-game lead over Kansas City in the AL Central.

“I think it’s huge just for us overall,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said.

Vogt has learned a lot in his six months managing games from the dugout, but he said he’s realized that the hardest part of the job is having to help keep his players’ mindsets on track when they aren’t seeing the results they would like after countless hours of work. That’s been most of the month of August, considering the usually reliable bats of José Ramírez, Josh Naylor and Steven Kwan have been largely inconsistent. This caused multiple guys to start pressing, hoping to make up for lost production.

Vogt sat on the dais in front of local media on Tuesday night after Cleveland dropped its third straight game to lose sole possession of first place in the AL Central, acknowledging that the answer would be for his team to step back, exhale and allow themselves to play the way they did the first five months of the season. He knew it was harder said than done, but he also knew that they just needed one ball to drop in for a clutch base hit. Then, more would follow.

It took until the seventh inning, but that theory finally played out.

Trailing by three runs, a leadoff homer by Bo Naylor brought some energy to the home dugout. Then, back-to-back singles by Steven Kwan and Andrés Giménez built some momentum. The offense racked up six hits in the frame -- the most in a single inning for the Guardians all year -- to plate four runs, punctuated with a go-ahead RBI single by Jhonkensy Noel.

“We haven’t looked exactly like ourselves at times, but for our guys to come back in that game, put up that inning, that’s us,” Vogt said. “Find a way to put up a crooked number, especially with two outs. … So that was such a great response from our guys today.”

It was single after single that brought home most of Cleveland’s runs. It was Kwan moving up 90 feet on a wild pitch at the beginning of the rally. It was second baseman Andrés Giménez making sure the Royals didn’t take the momentum back in the next inning by leaping with his back to the infield as his glove extended across his body to nab a line drive that would’ve easily fell into center field. He recorded the out, flipped the ball into the infield and bowed, indicating that the flare this team had played with all season was suddenly rushing back.

After the Guardians scored again in the eighth, Emmanuel Clase came in for the ninth and recorded his American League-best 39th save, lowering his ERA to 0.58.

The Guardians aren’t out of the woods just yet. After a three-game series against the Pirates at home this weekend, they will head to Kansas City for three more contests against the second-place team. For now, the Guardians will cling to that one-game lead in the division race. They’ll need to build on the momentum they established Wednesday and take advantage of the opportunity to make that lead even bigger ahead of Monday.

Wednesday was a subtle reminder that they can do that. This group knows what it’s capable of, so maybe it didn’t need the reminder. But it certainly was a confidence booster at the most critical point of the season thus far.

“We’ve been struggling at this point in the season, but I feel like the mindset still stays the same,” Guardians starter Tanner Bibee said. “Keep the same mindset and then just keep plugging away. It’s going to work. It’s going to happen. I mean, we’ve won 76 games this year now. I think we’re like two games out of the best record in the league. I think teams are allowed to struggle a little bit and we’re going to come out of it even better.”