In the major leagues, when you’re not a big market team or a big spending team, the margins from year to year can be fickle and frustrating.

Just ask the Cleveland Guardians. A year ago at this time – that is to say, through Cleveland’s first 96 games - the Guardians had a record of 49-47 and were in second place in the American League’s Central Division, 2.5 games out of first.

At the same juncture this season, through 96 games, Cleveland has a record of 47-49, and at the start of play Friday the Guardians are again in second place, this time two games out of first.

In other words, the Guardians this year are almost exactly where they were, record-wise, at the same point in the schedule as a year ago.

The difference now is that we know how Cleveland’s 2022 season played out. It played out with the team going on a spectacular second half run, including a 21-8 month of September, resulting in a 92-win regular season, and a 96-win season, counting the playoffs. That Guardians team came within one Game 5 Division Series win from reaching the ALCS.

The 2023 Guardians currently stand at the top of virtually the same slope from which last year’s team launched its dash to the postseason. Whether this year’s team can duplicate last year’s electrifying run remains to be seen. If it does, it could be said that not only did last year’s and this year’s teams have nearly the same record when they began their second half surges, but they also faced many of the same hurdles.

The biggest of those, for both teams, was, and are, injuries to key pitchers. In 2022, two opening day rotation starters, Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac missed significant time. Civale made three different trips to the injured list for forearm, wrist, and glute issues. Plesac missed a month with a fractured hand. Due to injuries, Cleveland in 2022 used a total of 12 different starting pitchers.

The injured list among pitchers is even worse in 2023. With over two months left in the season the Guardians have already used 12 different starters. That includes staff ace Shane Bieber, who is on the injury list with an elbow issue that will keep him sidelined for an indefinite period of time. Also sidelined indefinitely with injuries are rotation starters Triston McKenzie and Cal Quantrill.

The injury list alone seems to make the chances of the 2023 Guardians being able to reach the postseason for the sixth time in the last eight years seem remote. But in many ways, the same demons that haunted the team at this point in the season a year ago, conceivably could be overcome by a Guardians team that, no matter how injured or undermanned they appear to be, are nothing if not resourceful.

The silver lining for the 2023 Guardians could be that, to this point, the AL Central is an even worse division than it was last year. It appears to be a two-horse race again, between Minnesota and Cleveland.

At the start of play Friday the division-leading Twins are only two games over .500 and the second-place Guardians are only two games under .500. The other three Central Division teams? Detroit is nine games under .500, Chicago is 16 games under .500, and Kansas City is 42 games under .500.

Working against the Guardians are some of the same shortcomings they had last year, when they still managed to pull a division title out of their hat. The most egregious of which is that, in an era in which all the other teams are hitting home runs, the Guardians are not. Their team total of 71 is 11 fewer than any other AL team and 13 fewer than any NL team.

With just over two months left in the regular season, the Guardians, as currently constructed, have rookies in three of the five spots in their starting rotation, and it’s not out of the question that they could finish the season with that configuration.

The good news there is that the three rookies – Tanner Bibee, Logan Allen, and Gavin Williams – have all pitched well. That’s a ray of sunshine for a manager who could use some. Cleveland skipper Terry Francona has a well-deserved reputation for handling pitching staffs and bullpens, so Francona’s magic touch may be tested to the limit over the remainder of the 2023 season.

For now, what’s clear is that the 2023 Guardians are, with a few exceptions, essentially the same group that last year surprised the league, their fans, and, perhaps, themselves with an out-of-the-blue second-half stampede to the postseason.

But in the business of baseball, the margins from year to year for a small-market team on a finite budget can be fickle and frustrating. What worked one year might not work the next.

Case in point: this year’s Cleveland Guardians, who look, and play a lot like last year’s Guardians. That doesn’t mean the results will be the same.

But it also doesn’t mean that they can’t be the same.