ATLANTA -- The Guardians have gone a while this season by solely leaning on their offense and bullpen. Now, the loss of Shane Bieber and the delayed start of Gavin Williams is becoming glaring.

The Cleveland Pitching Factory has been the highlight in Northeast Ohio for years now. No matter how much the offense struggled, everyone knew that the rotation would at least give the team a chance to win every single night. But in a blink of an eye, that assurance is fading, as Cleveland watched Logan Allen give up four runs in 4 2/3 innings in the Guardians’ 6-2 loss to the Braves on Friday night at Truist Park.

“[Allen] was kind of missing off the arm side,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “First time through, he was great. Sharp. … Started out great and then it kind of just fell apart pretty quick. But he battled.”

This is new territory for the Guardians. One shaky start from Allen isn’t a problem, but the pattern that this rotation has fallen into has highlighted an area of weakness on this current roster that may need to be addressed.

Sure, it can take starters some time to get rolling or build their pitch counts at the beginning of the season. There are no expectations that the rotation is in midseason form by the end of April, but Cleveland has always gotten more length from its starters than it has so far this year.

In the first 26 contests, the Guardians have seen four occasions in which the starting pitcher worked at least six innings -- two belong to Bieber, one to Allen and the other to Ben Lively. That’s the fewest number of starts of at least six innings in the first 26 games of a season in club history. The previous low in this span was eight such outings in 2022. Every other season had at least 10 six-plus-inning starts.

In short: The Guardians have never had to rely on every other facet of its roster as much as it has this year. The 124 2/3 combined innings from Cleveland’s starters entering this weekend’s series was the sixth fewest in the Majors among all 30 rotations.

This had been manageable, considering the team had won 18 of its first 25 games, however this just shines a light on how hot the offense and the bullpen have each been. The bats owned a plus-49 run differential before the series opener against the Braves, which ranked the best in the Majors. The bullpen’s 2.31 ERA before the series was the second best, behind only the Tigers (2.06).

“I mean, those guys, I think [Tim Herrin] called them 'dogs' or something like that out there,” Vogt said. “They’ve just been really impressive.”

This gave the starting rotation ample time to try to settle in after losing its ace, Bieber, earlier this month. Even with shorter starts, the entire pitching staff had allowed the second-fewest number of runs (85) in the Majors this season, trailing only the Royals (80) entering Friday night. Yet it hasn’t been enough to create momentum in the rotation just yet.

The Guardians knew they were going to have to bank on Bieber to eat up innings this year. That’s why the team wanted to make sure he and Tanner Bibee weren’t back-to-back in the rotation; they needed the two guys who had the best chance to get deeper into games earlier in the season to be spread out, for the bullpen’s sake.

Now, Bieber is out for the rest of the year. Williams will be shut down for a few more days and the organization has to hope that his anti-inflammatory injection will help him get back in the mix without any pain. If he can come back in June, he’s an arm that could provide some length.

If the team needs any extra starters in the meantime, it only has Xzavion Curry ready to go at Triple-A Columbus. The depth is thin and it’s taking longer than usual for this rotation to find its stride, but the Guardians are hopeful their rotation will soon shine like it always has. Until then, the bullpen is ready to eat up the innings.

“Obviously, we’ve asked a lot of them already and they’re going to continue to get a lot of work,” Vogt said. “I feel good about any of those guys coming into the game, like I say all the time.”