The Detroit Tigers defeated the Cleveland Guardians two games to one in the American League Wild Card series, ultimately ending the Guardians' season. Detroit blew a 15.5 game lead during the regular season, as Cleveland shocked the MLB world by winning the American League Central. However, the Tigers bounced back in the postseason. So, which Guardians are most to blame for the team's frustrating series against the Tigers?
Steven Kwan
Jose Ramirez is the best player on the Guardians, but Steven Kwan is not too far behind. He's a Gold Glove outfielder and reliable offensive presence at the top of the batting order… at least for most of the time. It was a different story in the Guardians' three games against the Tigers, though.
Kwan hit just .167/.167/.333 (2-12 at the plate). He features some of the better plate discipline in the game. Even when Kwan is not hitting the ball well, he often finds ways to get on base. His .167 OBP was obviously far from ideal, though.
Aside from their six-run outburst in Game 2, the Guardians' offense failed to find much of a rhythm. Kwan's inability to get on base certainly played a role.
He's still a tremendous player who will positively impact the ball club in 2026, but Cleveland would have had a much better chance of winning the series if Kwan played up to his expectations.
Guardians' defense
The Guardians often play a quality brand of defense. However, the team not only made multiple errors, but the defense endured a number of mistakes that were not officially scored as errors.
Cleveland made four total errors. There were other plays that could have been made but were not. The errors were troublesome enough, but mistakes — such as the one you will see in the following video from infielder CJ Kayufs — led to the series loss.
Video via MLB:
Kerry Carpenter sends one down the line for a @Tigers lead 👀 pic.twitter.com/u26ywzoVQF
— MLB (@MLB) October 2, 2025
The Guardians may have had an inning-ending double play if Kayfus caught the ground-ball. Instead, the ball got by him and the Tigers took an early lead. Of course, the defense was not all Kayfus' fault, as a number of other Guardians made errors/defensive mistakes.
Jose Ramirez
Is it fair to blame Ramirez for the series loss after he carried the Guardians for most of the season? In fact, Ramirez has carried the team for years now. It is certainly difficult to place any blame on Ramirez, but he made a couple of costly base-running mistakes that negatively impacted the team.
From an offensive standpoint, the Guardians superstar hit .250/.500/.250 with four walks and an RBI. It certainly wasn't his best performance, but Ramirez's hitting is not the reason he is landing in our most to blame article.
In the 9th inning of Game 1, Kyle Manzardo hit a ground-ball back to Tigers' closer Will Vest as Detroit led 2-1 with one out in the inning. Ramirez, who was seemingly running on contact, took off for home and was ultimately tagged out. The Tigers ended up holding onto the 2-1 lead for a big victory.
The baserunning blunders did not stop there, though.
In the 8th inning of Game 3 with runners on second and third base and two outs, Ramirez stepped to the plate as Cleveland trailed 6-1. He hit the ball on the ground to first base where Spencer Torkelson fielded it cleanly. However, Vest — who was pitching again — covered first base but dropped the throw from Torkelson.
As a result, the Guardians added two runs to make it a 6-3 game. It seemed as if Cleveland was officially back in the contest. Ramirez, however, immediately ran to second base following Vest's error. The Tigers pitcher recovered the ball and threw Ramirez out at second base.
It required a tremendous tag from Javier Baez — but the fact of the matter is that Ramirez was far too aggressive given the fact that Cleveland still trailed by three runs.
Final thoughts
It's fair to place the blame on the Guardians' two best players and the defense for this series. Sure, the overall offense was horrendous at times — but Cleveland needed Ramirez and Kwan to lead the way both offensively and on the base paths. And with the lineup struggling, the Guardians needed a much better all-around defensive performance.
Cleveland displayed no shortage of resiliency in September as they passed Detroit for the division lead. However, this was a team that did not look ready for the bright lights of October baseball. Nevertheless, the future remains bright with Ramirez and Kwan leading the way.
