CLEVELAND -- In dropping Sunday¡¯s rubber match to the Red Sox, 13-3, at Progressive Field, the Guardians suffered their largest margin of defeat in nearly three years and committed their most errors in a single game managed by Stephen Vogt.
In other words, it was an uncharacteristic day as Cleveland lost its first home series of 2025 after winning its first three.
¡°Everyone in that clubhouse knows that that was not us on the field today,¡± Guardians right fielder Nolan Jones said. ¡°That¡¯s not the way we play baseball. It was a bad representation of us. That¡¯s why we play 162, right? Come back tomorrow with a fresh slate and get to do it again.¡±
Sunday marked the Guardians¡¯ largest margin of defeat since June 27, 2022, when they lost, 11-1, to the Twins. They committed four errors, their most since Aug. 16, 2023, in a 7-2 loss to the Reds (also four).
Along with plays that did go down as errors in the box score, Sunday¡¯s loss featured misplays that did not. Collectively, against a talented Red Sox team, those moments add up and are going to cost you.
The Guardians pride themselves on their strong defense and run prevention, and Sunday was not a representative performance.
¡°We didn¡¯t help ourselves today,¡± Vogt said. ¡°I thought this was a very uncharacteristic game of our guys, top to bottom in all areas.¡±
Boston scored its second run on a Ceddanne Rafaela flyout in the second. Center fielder Angel Mart¨ªnez made the catch and fired a relay toward home plate. First baseman Carlos Santana went to cut the ball off, and it deflected off the top of his glove and got away from everybody.
Kristian Campbell -- who was the Red Sox runner on third base -- was not going to tag. Once the ball got away, he was able to score. Mart¨ªnez was charged with a throwing error, his second of the game. He was also charged with a tough one in the first inning.
With Jarren Duran on second base, Mart¨ªnez caught an Alex Bregman flyout, and his throw back to the infield short-hopped Guardians shortstop Brayan Rocchio. It got away, and Duran advanced to third.
Mart¨ªnez has impressed in center field for the Guardians this season, since being promoted from Triple-A Columbus on April 9. Those were his first two errors, in his 13th game and 12th start out there.
¡°I thought Angel did fine,¡± Vogt said. ¡°We're always working, all of our guys. We're always working. There's always things we want to get better at. But we just didn't play clean baseball today all around.
¡°It wasn't one in particular. It was just kind of as a team. We just did not play our type of baseball today. We did not play clean.¡±
The fifth inning, in particular, spiraled on Cleveland, when Boston scored five times to chase starter Logan Allen. The Red Sox sent all nine batters to the plate in the inning, which included a pair of Allen walks. But Boston also took advantage of a few plays the Guardians did not make.
Second baseman Daniel Schneemann committed a throwing error on a delayed double steal. Jones lost a fly ball in the sun on the right-field warning track, and it turned into an RBI ground-rule double by Rafaela.
¡°Obviously, they¡¯ve got some superstars over there that take advantage of mistakes,¡± Jones said of the Red Sox. ¡°They took a lot of good swings today, and obviously we did not do our part, including myself, defensively. I lost that ball in the sun, and it just can't happen.¡±
Jones hit his first home run of the season, and his first since June 29, 2024, as a member of the Rockies. His three-run blast in the sixth snapped a homerless drought that spanned 189 at-bats.
Meanwhile, in four starts entering Sunday, Allen led Guardians starters with a 2.11 ERA. He had allowed two runs (one earned) in 16 innings over his previous three starts, before being charged with seven runs on nine hits and three walks in 4 1/3 innings on Sunday.
¡°I thought Logan threw the ball way better than what showed,¡± Vogt said. ¡°Command got away from him a little bit there in the fifth. I thought Logan threw the ball well enough to give us a chance today.¡±
The Guardians will welcome the division rival Twins to town for four games on Monday. Cleveland knows it has to turn the page.
¡°The beauty of it is we¡¯re right back to it tomorrow,¡± Allen said. ¡°Get after it tomorrow and have a chance to win a game. That's always the easy way to flush it.¡±