Press "Enter" to skip to content

Cleveland Baseball History

Grand Slam Provides Only Offense

June 18, 2026

In Wednesday’s loss to the Brewers, ‘s grand slam provided the only offense in the 9-4 loss.

That’s the first time a grand slam was Cleveland’s only offense since…. Daniel Schneemann’s last grand slam in April!

Here are all the instances dating back to 1990:

Kipnis and Belle’s grand slams were walk-offs.

Multiple Grand Slams in a Season

June 18, 2026

On Wednesday night in Milwaukee, hit his second grand slam of the season and third of his career.

It’s the 46th time in franchise history someone has hit multiple grand slams in a season and the first since in 2022.

The franchise record is six by in 2006.

The overwhelming majority of players on the list are exactly who you would expect, but here are a few names that stick out as more Schneeman-like:

Leadoff Home Runs Allowed

June 18, 2026

In Wednesday’s loss to the Brewers, gave up a leadoff home run to Christian Yelich.

It was the seventh time in his career he’s surrendered a leadoff homer, tying the franchise record, which was also tied by earlier this year.

Here’s the leaderboard:

Bibee and Williams also share the team record for most leadoff home runs allowed in a year with four (Bibee this year, Williams last year).

The rise in power hitters batting leadoff is a key factor in these lists featuring recent pitchers. Here’s what the leaderboard looked like entering the 2015 season:

At that point in time, Niekro and shared the team record for leadoff homers allowed in a season, both allowing three in 1987.

[Note: Leadoff home runs are sometimes defined as only being by the road team. For the purposes of this stat, I’m including the first batter of the game for each team.]

ERA through 66 Games

June 17, 2026

Injuries have limited to just 66 games through his first three seasons, as he currently sits on the IL.

But through those first 66 games, Sabrowski has been one of the best relievers in baseball, posting a 1.43 ERA.

That’s the second lowest ERA through 66 games over the last 100 years:

  • 2005-06 Jonathan Papelbon, BOS – 1.39
  • 2024-26 Erik Sabrowski, CLE –  1.43
  • 2002-03 Brendan Donnelly, ANA –  1.47
  • 2014-15 Ken Giles, PHI – 1.50
  • 1964-65 Bob Lee, LAA – 1.56
  • 2013-14 Kevin Siegrist, STL 1.56

This leaderboard likely holds throughout all of major league history, due to the heavy use of starting pitchers in the early years of baseball and the rarity of them posting ERAs under 2.00 for an extended period of time. But I can’t say for certain without doing some manual research on earned runs for early 1900s pitchers.

Here’s the Cleveland leaderboard:

First-Half Hits by Rookies

June 12, 2026

Something to keep an eye on over the next month is ‘s hit total, as he has a chance to climb the leaderboard of most first-half hits by Cleveland rookies.

Here’s the list so far entering the 2026 season:

If you search on baseball-reference it will turn up ‘s 1950 season as his rookie year (with 86 first-half hits). But he was on the roster for the entirety of May and June in 1949, making him ineligible (the fact that he received MVP votes but no rookie of the year votes is also evidence he was not considered a rookie at the time).

Most Saves in a Month

June 1, 2026

Guardians closer just wrapped up a dominant month of May with a 1.32 ERA while recording a team-record 13 saves.

Here’s the list of the most saves in a calendar month for Cleveland:

Consecutive winless starts to open the season

June 1, 2026

The Guardians bullpen blew a 3-2 lead against Boston on Sunday afternoon, extending ‘s winless streak to 13 games, a franchise record to open the season.

Here’s Cleveland’s all-time leaderboard of winless streaks to open the year:

It’s also worth mentioning , who had a streak of 16 winless starts in 2004 – eight with the Rockies and then eight more after being acquired by Cleveland.

Bibee hasn’t been great, but he also doesn’t deserve to be winless in 13 starts.

Hentges, Waits, McDowell and Mejia all had ERAs of 5.50 or worse.

Bibee’s ERA sits at 4.57, though Morton’s inability to win a game despite a 3.24 ERA was even more baffling.

The MLB record technically belongs to Ryan Stanek, who had separate winless streaks of 27 and 29 games for Tampa, but those were as an opener. The real record is 23 games by Oakland’s Matt Keough in 1979.

Fastest to 20 Saves

May 30, 2026

The Guardians took down the Red Sox on Friday night allowing to pick up his 20th save of the season.

He’s tied for the fourth fastest in team history to reach 20 saves:

Extra-Base Hit Drought to Start Career

May 29, 2026

22 games into ‘s career, he’s still searching for his first extra-base hit.

Excluding pitchers, that’s the 18th longest streak to begin a career in team history.

Here are the longest in the Jacobs Field Era:

The franchise record is 56 games, set by during the 1984 and 1987 seasons (he spent all of 1985-86 in the minors).