A letdown series looms, perhaps?
Intro
As these teams cross over into the 2nd half of the 2025 Championship Season, the St. Louis Cardinals visit the Cleveland Guardians for a 3-game series.
The 44-38 Cardinals come off quite a homestand against the Reds and Cubs and travel to Cleveland without benefit of an off day. June is turning into a grueling marathon. In a way, it is a good development experience for the young guys to learn how to get through these. Depth and resilience are being tested.
The 40-39 Guardians are continuing a homestand that started with graciously hosting the Blue Jays, who won 2 of 3.
The Pitching Matchups (projected)
Friday – Gray vs Ortiz @ 6:10p (all times Central)
Saturday – Mikolas vs Cecconi @ 3:10p
Sunday – Liberatore vs Allen @ 11:05p
Quick peek (not peak) at the pitching/run prevention
The Indians look to have the rotation the Cardinals would like to have. Young, cheap, solid performance with FIPs right around 4.
On Friday, 26-year-old right hander Luis Ortiz Jr. takes the mound. He carries a 4.30 ERA but a 3.98 FIP. His xFIP is even better than that. He carries a 25.7% K rate, so there is swing-and-miss in his stuff. An 11% walk rate is his undoing.
On Saturday, 26-year-old Slade Cecconi toes the rubber. He just turned 26 earlier this week. He carries a 3.38 ERA and a 4.30 FIP. 23.4% K rate and 7.6% walk rate feels right about average. His Statcast profile is more blue than red. It looks like he gets hit hard but finds gloves.
On Sunday, the Guardians expect to deploy 26-year-old lefty Logan Allen. Another lefty! 4.21 ERA, 4.58 FIP. A 17.1% K rate and a 10.3% walk rate seems like it would be troublesome for him, which may play up with this relatively patient Cardinal attack. He has been good at suppressing HR this year (9% HR/FB rate). The Cardinals are unlikely to regress that to the norm.
The Guardians do feature some serious heat out of the bullpen, perhaps another feature the Cardinals would be envious of. They have a fair number of pitchers with K rates well in excess of 25%. Predictably, several are on the IL. Smith and his 36.6% K rate is not. Nor is Gaddis and his 29.5% K rate. Clase seems pedestrian but that 2.54 FIP tells the tale of a good reliever. Close-and-late could swing Cleveland’s way.
Cleveland is middle ground on defense by OAA, 15th in the MLB.
A peak at the offense
The Guardians come in ranked 25th offensively by wRC+ (team value is 89). Of course, this is where Milwaukee was before the Cardinals finished with them and now Milwaukie is up to 20th. So don’t count any chickens yet. The Guardians have even less HR than the Cardinals (by 1).
Ramirez and Kwan are pretty much all of their offense. Although, at times, it seems like Cardinal pitching has had a tougher time with bottom of the order guys that the top hitters.
Cleveland is below average on baserunning by BsR (19th).
About the venue
Progressive Field in Cleveland is a pitcher’s park, suppressing offense by 3% (Busch III is neutral, by comparison). This stadium harshly suppresses HR rates by 16%, even more so than Busch.
Overall
In the stats there is some separation between these teams, but not enough to define the next 3 games. Over longer time spans, the Cardinals rank better in pitching, defense, offense and base running, by a bit in each category (more than a bit in runs scored), but that is somewhat negated with how banged up the Cardinal offense is.
While the Guardians are in second place in the NL Central, they carry a negative run differential (-32) and are 1 just game over .500. Temper that with knowing they are 14-5 within the AL Central. Against non-AL Central teams and against >.500 teams, their record is quite poor. This is not a prediction for this series, just trying to provide a reference point for the opponent.
Cardinal updates
Herrera will be out for a good while. They will miss his RH bat. A lot!
To borrow a college football term, this has the looks of potentially being a trap series. Coming off an intense rivalry series, and going into another NL Central series after this, it can sometimes be easy to overlook a middling opponent in between.