CLEVELAND — The 2-1 curveball that Slade Cecconi snapped off to Alejandro Osuna in the first inning on Friday hung over the plate on the inner half. After the drive carried out over the right-center-field wall, Cecconi hunched over and silence overtook a sellout crowd of 36,275 at Progressive Field.
Osuna’s three-run homer was part of the four-run deficit that Cecconi and Cleveland fell into in the first inning of the Guardians’ 7-3 loss to the Rangers.
“It just didn’t seem like Slade was super sharp tonight,” manager Stephen Vogt said.
The Guardians will have to be at their sharpest the next two days. They have two games to clinch a postseason berth, in a season that has been an emotional roller coaster ride for both them and their fan base — which will buckle up for another high-intensity ride this weekend.
Had the Guardians won Friday’s series opener, they would have been able to punch their postseason ticket later in the evening when the Astros lost to the Angels. That was rendered moot, though all was not lost.
The Guardians got some help on Friday, when the Red Sox beat the Tigers, 4-3, on a Ceddanne Rafaela walk-off triple. Cleveland and Detroit (86-74) remain tied atop the American League Central, but because the Guardians won the season series (8-5), they have the tiebreaker. Cleveland’s magic number to win the AL Central is two, and its magic number to clinch a postseason berth is one. The club must turn the page quickly.
“You move on. We have another one tomorrow,” Vogt said. “We still get to control our own destiny. Obviously, it hurts. It hurts to lose right now because every game is magnified. It’s a short schedule left. But our guys are going to come ready.
“Even right after the third out [in the ninth], everybody was like, ‘Hey, we’ll get them tomorrow.’ This group doesn’t get fazed by anything. We lost tonight — that’s what’s true. So we’re going to be ready to go tomorrow.”
Vogt noted pregame Friday that his club has been in playoff mode “every day.” Such is life for a team that entered the month 68-67, 10 1/2 games behind Detroit in the division and four games back of the final AL Wild Card spot.
They’ve embraced it well; the Guardians are 18-7 in September, including 17-4 since Sept. 5.
“When the calendar flips to September, it’s go time,” Vogt said. “You start to feel the fall air. It feels like October, right? When you treat every game like a playoff game, there’s not one game that feels bigger than another.”
It’s a good mentality to have this weekend.
Cecconi (who has been steady and entered the day with a 4.15 ERA in 128 innings over 22 starts this season) acknowledged he was not at his sharpest early in Friday’s outing. He walked Joc Pederson in a six-pitch sequence and allowed a Cody Freeman single.
Rowdy Tellez hit an RBI double two batters later, and Osuna followed with his three-run blast two batters after that. The blast came with two outs.
Entering Friday, Cecconi’s curveball was his third-most-thrown pitch this season and opponents were hitting just .124 against it with a 33.1 percent whiff rate. Cecconi said the intent with Osuna was to throw it below, and it didn’t come out right.
“I’ve got to tip my cap: The guy hit my best pitch for a homer,” Cecconi said. “It wasn’t in my best spot, but it’s my best pitch in a tight spot, and he hit it for a homer.”
Cecconi did not allow any further damage over his final three innings. And while the Guardians’ offense got back in the game immediately with a Kyle Manzardo two-run homer off Rangers starter Jack Leiter in the bottom of the first, they didn’t produce much else.
Cleveland went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position. The team entered Friday ranked third in MLB in average (.324), third in OPS (.908) and tied for eighth in RBIs (77) in those situations this month.
The Guardians were fully aware of what went down in Boston, but said they were not preoccupied with what was going on elsewhere because their destiny is in their own hands.
The fact they will have more clarity by the time they play Saturday also lends itself to that. First pitch in Cleveland is 7:15 p.m. ET, and the Tigers will get underway at 4:10 pm in Boston.
It’s one of the final chances Cleveland has left to assure itself a place in the picture in October.
“We’re focused on us, man,” Cecconi said. “We’re trying to win the next two games and take care of it.”
