Cleveland built its recent October clubs around starting pitching, late-inning relief and the enduring force of José Ramírez. That formula is back for the 2026 American League Division Series, but it arrives with a different wrinkle: the Guardians are bringing a deeper, livelier lineup into Saturday’s Game 1 against the White Sox at Progressive Field.
Rookie Parker Messick will start the opener, scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on TBS, truTV and HBO Max, with Gavin Williams set to follow in Game 2. Williams finished the regular season as the American League strikeout leader, and Cleveland’s bullpen again gives the rotation a sturdy bridge to the finish. The relief group posted a 3.54 ERA, sixth-best in the majors, while its 10.21 strikeouts per nine innings led baseball.
That part of the club has familiar roots. Shane Bieber, Carlos Carrasco, Tanner Bibee and Williams have fronted recent Cleveland postseason staffs, and the Guardians have regularly trusted their arms to carry an offense that could run thin after Ramírez. Last season, Ramírez and Kyle Manzardo were the only two Cleveland hitters to finish above league average in wRC+, with Manzardo at 112.
This time, the lineup found its footing without asking Ramírez to do all the lifting. From Aug. 1 through the close of the regular season, the Guardians ranked fourth in the majors with a 108 wRC+ and scored 245 runs, sixth-most in that stretch. They also reached base at a .330 clip, another top-six mark.
Those gains came while Ramírez worked through a difficult return from left hand surgery. He came back July 22 after missing more than a month and never quite resembled his usual self over the final two months. Among 161 qualified hitters, his 72 wRC+ ranked 145th during that period. September was particularly rough: he hit .198/.237/.264 in 97 plate appearances, producing a 39 wRC+. Still, there was a welcome hint at the finish, as Ramírez collected 12 hits and an .831 OPS over his last nine games.
A longer order for October
Steven Kwan’s second-half surge has been one of the major reasons Cleveland has avoided depending solely on its franchise cornerstone. Angel Martínez and Brayan Rocchio each added 11 extra-base hits in September and cleared a .900 OPS for the month. But the more dramatic change came from players who were not even on the active roster when the 2025 season ended: Chase DeLauter, Travis Bazzana and trade-deadline acquisition Jo Adell.
DeLauter made his major league entrance in last year’s postseason, becoming only the sixth player ever to debut in the big leagues during October. The 2022 first-round pick opened 2026 with a two-homer performance on Opening Day, then endured a May and June slump while also losing time to a rib fracture. Since Aug. 1, he has hit .311/.400/.507 with 17 extra-base hits in 170 plate appearances.
The 24-year-old has controlled the strike zone as well as he has driven the ball, placing above the 90th percentile in both whiff avoidance and chase avoidance. His OPS sits north of .800 against pitchers from either side, and his .323 batting average against left-handers ranks third among 95 left-handed hitters with at least 75 plate appearances. After appearing in 133 games—more than twice his previous professional high—DeLauter has answered the durability question that had followed him and looks settled near the top of the order.
Bazzana, the first overall selection in the 2024 Draft, reached Cleveland on April 28 and took over the leadoff spot within a month. Kwan’s resurgence later moved Bazzana lower in the batting order, where the 24-year-old infielder has helped give the Guardians a tougher bottom half. He hit six home runs in 23 September games, and his 170 wRC+ for the month placed 19th among qualified major league hitters.
Power is not generally Bazzana’s calling card, but he found more of it down the stretch. His barrel rate climbed from 4.6% through August to 8.2% in September, above the 7.7% league average, while his pulled fly-ball rate jumped from 15.4% to 26.2%. The change showed up in the box score at a time Cleveland needed another source of impact contact.
The Guardians still are not a home-run-heavy club. Their 162 regular-season homers ranked 27th in the majors, and their 56 since Aug. 1 were 19th. Martínez led the team with only 18. That made the Aug. 3 acquisition of Adell especially important. After hitting 37 homers for the Angels, the hard-swinging outfielder hit seven in 48 games for Cleveland, the most by any Guardian from his Aug. 4 debut onward.
Adell also made a quieter adjustment. He drew 18 walks in 204 plate appearances with Cleveland, an 8.8% rate, after taking only 16 walks in 456 trips to the plate with the Angels, a 3.5% mark. His on-base percentage rose from .287 to .324 following the move, fitting neatly into a lineup that has become much more difficult to navigate.
Messick, Williams and that strikeout-rich bullpen remain the backbone of Cleveland’s October case. But the Guardians no longer enter the ALDS as a club waiting for Ramírez to rescue every inning. With Kwan setting a tone, DeLauter and Bazzana emerging, Adell adding needed thump, and Ramírez showing a little life in the final week, this is a more complete Cleveland group than the one its reputation might suggest.
