Fuck: The Guardians Early MVP Candidate And AL Batting Leader, Steven Kwan, Is Out For At Least A Month
Fuuuuuck. If you've watched any Guardians baseball so far this year, you know this is extremely awful news for the organization to receive. This dude has been an absolute stud at both the plate and in the field, winning us literal baseball games with both his bat and his glove. So to everyone saying "it could be worse", lose that optimistic attitude that you have that everyone hates. No one thought it was going to be this serious when they kept him out of the lineup yesterday, and even when they announced he was going to the 10-day IL, it still didn't seem that serious. Now we're talking about "approximately" 4 weeks, which in Guardians terms could mean 4 months. Plus, he's struggled with this injury before. Some people are saying they're going to work him back in slowly, and you could expect him back July 1. This news fucking sucks, and you can pile it on to the early season injury list to our best players.
Remember when Shane Bieber started the season 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA through 12 innings before having to shut down for the season? Me too. And despite a 22-12 start and a 1st place position in the AL Central, I'm officially going from super cocky like I was at the beginning of the season to very nervous while Kwan is out. One reason is because Kwan is absolutely essential to this team's success, and the other is because out of fucking nowhere, the AL Central has become the best division in baseball.
The fact of the matter is we're over performing from what our expectations were, and now we need to continue to do so without two of our top players. I liked our chances much better when the Twins were 7-13, not when they win 12 straight games before losing yesterday to now be 19-14. And even the Royals and Tigers have had to cool off to be where they're at now. I know it's a long season, but I would've figured in a division where the winner could have presumably been hovering around .500, we wouldn't have 4 teams above .500 into May. My confidence came from the fact that if we were better than expected, we could win this thing. Now we're down to key players, one for the season, and the rest of the division is better than expected too. I'm officially nervous for this next month. Hopefully we can win this series at home with the Tigers and then come to Chicago and handle our business vs. the White Sox in a 4-game set. But if the wheels come off, this won't look good a month from now.
Alright, I'll quit my crying for a second to say that one positive that comes from this is that we finally called up Kyle Manzardo.
He's starting at DH tonight. Hopefully he continues to tear the cover off the baseball in the Majors like he has been in the Minors, and when Kwan comes back he can stay up with the big league team. Okay that's enough positivity for a day in which we learn our early MVP candidate is out for a month. I just hope we're still above water when he returns.