Jim Ingraham: Young Guardians proving to be masters at old-school baseball

The apparent end to what felt like an unexpectedly special, majestically magical season came crashing down during a 10-game span from Aug. 25 to Sept. 4, when the Guardians went 2-8 and were outscored 37-16. In the middle of that free fall was a ghastly four-game stretch in which Cleveland was shut out by either Seattle or Baltimore four times in six days, during which the Guards were outscored 17-1. At one point, the Guardians went 27 consecutive innings without scoring a single run. That, surely, was to be the death knell to the season. The unequivocal swan dive into the pool of the also-rans. It was fun and heroic while it lasted, but the long baseball season has a way of eventually separating the contenders from the pretenders. The highest payroll teams from the lowest payroll teams. The big dogs from the puppies. But look who's barking now. Terry Francona's masterpiece, his managerial Mona Lisa, is on the verge of clinching a division title for the fifth time in the last eight years. He's dropped the occasional hint this season that his Hall of Fame-bound career could be drawing to a close. Whenever that happens, and regardless of how far the Guardians gallop into the postseason this year, my guess is Francona's 2022 team will be his favorite. What Francona's team has done this season isn't just the stuff of David vs. Goliath. This is David's little brother vs. Goliath. This has been, quite simply, one of the most astonishing feats of not just managerial, but organizational legerdemain that the game has ever seen. Nobody saw this coming because it had no business happening. There is virtually no precedent for it happening. And it wouldn't have happened without a managerial savant behind the wheel, the front office's baseball lab producing, on demand, prospect after prospect and a roster filled with baby-faced believers who bought in, hook, line and Tito, what their leader was selling. What was their leader selling? The joys of good, old-fashioned, old-school baseball, played hard and played the right way. Every day. The Guardians have doubled down on Doubleday. No, Abner Doubleday didn't invent baseball, but his name works as a euphemism for the kind of roll-up-your-sleeves, lunch-pail commitment to winning that Team Tito has brandished throughout this stunning season. No team plays the game harder, or more correctly, than the kids from Cleveland. In this era of analytics, the Guardians are in some ways flying against the wind. While their baseball think tank does have their share of analytics worshipers, theirs seem to be more flexible. You work with what you have. So while most other teams are bowing at the alter of the home run, and willing to wade through however many strikeouts and slumps it takes to get there, the contact-oriented Guardians gladly pass on the pursuit of the long ball — they don't have many sluggers, anyway — in order to consistently put the ball in play, and make their opponents defend. Exhibit A: Stevie "Hit 'em where they ain't" Kwan. Despite their youth, they are the hustling-est, smartest, most relentless, most committed team in the league. They are a pain in the neck to play because they never stop playing hard. They never stop playing, period. Day in, day out, they come at you for all nine innings, 10 innings, 12 innings — whatever it takes. You've got to beat them, because they don't beat themselves. Again, this is old-school stuff. In an era in which nobody is stealing bases, they are. When everybody else is striking out, they aren't. When everybody tries to hit home runs, they don't. Collectively, they lead the league in little things — sacrifice flies, for example. They lead the majors in that. Baserunners going from first to third on hits? They lead the league in that. They lead the league in things you wouldn't think they'd be capable of leading the league in or almost leading the league. Only the Tigers have hit fewer home runs than Cleveland, but only the Yankees have drawn more intentional walks than the Guardians. In short, if it's worthwhile doing, if it helps the team win ball games, the Guardians are probably good at it. But the biggest thing they are good at is winning. At the start of play Saturday, only two American League teams — the Astros and Yankees — had won more games than the Guardians. Since ending that dreadful 10-game slump mentioned at the top of this column, the Guardians, entering play Saturday, were 16-3 (.842). Despite having one of the lowest payrolls in the sport, with the youngest roster in the sport, forced by injuries to use a three-man starting rotation the last six weeks, and picked by exactly nobody to win their division this year, the Cleveland Guardians, in the next day or two, will win their division. This is organizational brilliance the likes of which we may never see again. Contact Jim Ingraham at jingraham4@gmail.com and follow him @Jim_Ingraham on Twitter.