It may not be Jason Giambi’s golden thong, but the Guardians used an outside-the-box approach to end their hitting drought on Saturday.
The Guardians forewent traditional batting practice and replaced it with a home run derby and batting games, as relayed by Guardians radio announcer Tom Hamilton.
That switch galvanized the lineup, with Cleveland matching its season-high in runs with a 13-5 home pounding of the Rangers.
“It was a fun night all around,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said, per MLB.com. “The pitching was great. The offense was great. It was fun to put up some crooked numbers and then keep going.”
The Guardians entered Saturday having lost six of seven games to see their AL Central lead dwindle to just one game, largely due to an inept offense.
Cleveland scored 18 runs in that stretch, with nine coming against the Yankees in a 12-inning affair. They scored one run or less in four of those games.
For the season, the Guardians rank 13th in runs scored entering Monday.
With the Royals and Twins breathing down their necks, the Guardians needed to find a spark and MLB teams often consider zany ways to lift anemic offeses.
Teams have picked the order out of a hat, Giambi donned a golden thong to ease the tension in the clubhouse and teams often try changing their batting schedule.
The Guardians put their fun spin on the latter and put a hurting on the Rangers, tallying 15 hits and scoring in seven of their eight innings.
Eight of their hitters drove in at least one run, with outfielder Jhonkensy Noel leading the way with three.
“It’s easy to feel optimistic,” Guardians outfielder Steven Kwan said, according to MLB.com. “Even the outs that we had were loud, barrel outs. It just feels like this is the one where it’s like, ‘OK, now here we go.’ … It just takes one hit, one barrel, one good at-bat for everyone to start clicking. Hitting is contagious. Can’t help but kind of feel good about what’s coming next.”
The Guardians parlayed that success into another solid offensive day Sunday in a 5-3 win over the Rangers and now lead both the Twins and Royals by three games.