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CLEVELAND — In a season in which so few American League teams have distinguished themselves as contenders, the New York Yankees and Cleveland Guardians have shown an impressive level of consistency and competence. This should come as no surprise: Despite operating on opposite ends of the payroll spectrum, few teams have been as reliably competitive as these two over the past decade, even as their rosters have turned over.
In fact, only the Dodgers and Astros have won more regular-season games than the Yankees and Guardians since the start of the 2016 season. All that regular-season success has resulted in frequent trips to October, culminating in several clashes in the postseason: Cleveland and New York have faced off four times over that span (2017 ALDS, 2020 AL wild card, 2022 ALDS, 2024 ALCS), with the Yankees triumphing in all four (Cleveland last vanquished New York in the 2007 ALDS).
With so much recent history between these ballclubs, even their non-October meet-ups have generated a bit more buzz than your average regular-season series. And this year, the two scheduled showdowns between Cleveland and New York were packed into a span of eight days, offering a compelling sample of data between two clubs that project to be relevant in the American League postseason picture.
The Guardians took the first two games in the Bronx last week, including tagging emergent Yankees ace Cam Schlittler with his worst start of the season (4.1 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 0 BB, 3 K) and Gavin Williams outdueling Gerrit Cole. The Yankees responded by winning the series finale at home, then carried that momentum to Cleveland this week, where they earned narrow victories at Progressive Field on Mondayand Tuesday before cruising to a more comfortable win Wednesday, completing the sweep and clinching the season series.
Whether these teams will meet again in October remains to be seen, but here are a few takeaways from their early-season encounters.
After finishing April at .500 (16-16), the Guardians found their groove in May. A red-hot stretch in the middle of the month featured four consecutive series victories, including a four-game sweep of their reeling rivals, the Detroit Tigers. A win in Philadelphia on May 24 brought Cleveland’s record to 32-23 and its lead atop the AL Central to 4.5 games. With little resistance from their divisional foes outside the young and hungry White Sox, a golden opportunity seemed to be surfacing for Cleveland to create significant distance atop the division and establish itself as one of the few no-doubt contenders in the American League.
Instead, since that scorching sequence of 11 wins in 13 games last month, the Guardians have struggled to recapture their momentum and build upon their division lead. They’ve lost four of their past five series (Nationals, Red Sox, Rangers, Yankees), and any positive vibes enjoyed early last week in the Bronx were wiped away by the poor results in the following four contests against the Yankees. Notably, the Guardians suffered their first sweep of the season on Wednesday, leaving the Braves and Dodgers as the only remaining teams that have avoided being swept in 2026.
Now Cleveland is 37-33 and technically tied for first with the 35-31 White Sox, who have continued to play well and just got some reinforcements in the form of top prospect Braden Montgomery, who hit a walk-off homer Tuesday in his MLB debut. Remarkably, the Guardians have yet to play the White Sox this season, but those upcoming games — a three-game set June 22-24 in Chicago and a four-game series July 2-5 at Progressive Field — are suddenly marquee matchups, which few would have projected a few months ago.
Meanwhile, Tigers ace Tarik Skubal is on his way back from his revolutionary elbow surgery and could fuel a Detroit resurgence to flush its miserable first couple of months. The Royals and Twins would each have to show a lot more to be considered threatening to Cleveland, but they aren’t that far behind.
Recent slog aside, the Guardians have played more good baseball than bad this season, and they deserve some faith that they’ll course-correct in short order. Still, what looked to be an easy path to a third consecutive division title no longer looks as clear. Cleveland has some work to do.
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When the Yankees re-signed Goldschmidt to a one-year, $4 million deal in February — a finishing touch on New York’s run-it-back offseason — it was unclear what to expect from the veteran first baseman, in terms of both impact and role. With Ben Rice expected to assume an every-day role at first base and Giancarlo Stanton projected to clog the DH spot, Goldschmidt looked like a bench bat at best, one who would be called upon occasionally to mash against left-handers. He had tailed off hard down the stretch last season, posting a .653 OPS over the final two months — an ominous trajectory as he entered his age-38 season.
That Stanton landed on the injured list in late April, opening up more playing time for Goldschmidt with Rice assuming more DH days, didn’t exactly come as a shock. But because Goldschmidt played so infrequently during the first month (just 29 plate appearances in the Yankees’ first 27 games) and because of his discouraging form toward the end of last season, expectations for his contributions remained low. Yet since Stanton went down, Goldschmidt has been not just one of the Yankees’ best bats but also one of the best hitters in the league: His 163 wRC+ since April 26 ranks ninth in MLB, ahead of Rice and even Aaron Judge over that span.
Goldschmidt homered in both series openers vs. Cleveland, bringing his season total to eight in 42 games after he hit just 10 across 146 contests last season. While he has done the majority of his damage against lefties, Goldschmidt proved his potency against same-handed pitching on Monday, when he took a 94.6-mph cutter from Guardians right-hander Gavin Williams over the high wall in left field for a two-run homer in the top of the first inning.
"We've needed him to step up, and he certainly has,” manager Aaron Boone said afterward. “He's just been really productive, whether it's a big hit with runners in scoring position, whether it's flashing the power and still that real, real dangerous presence against lefties. So to get us off to a good start tonight against obviously a really good pitcher in Williams over there was big.”
“He’s a Hall of Famer in my book,” Yankees starter Will Warren said. “38 and still doing it.”
Still doing it, indeed. With his 39th birthday approaching in September, Goldschmidt is older than all but two position players who have appeared in an MLB game in 2026. And those two — D-backs first baseman Carlos Santana, who is currently on the injured list, and Andrew McCutchen, who was released by the Rangers on May 28 — aren’t exactly thriving.
Whenever his career concludes, Goldschmidt’s case for Cooperstown will be one of the more fascinating to debate among this generation of highly accomplished hitters. But for now, he’ll keep adding to his résumé — and his teammates will keep enjoying the show.
"He's unbelievable,” outfielder Cody Bellinger said. “He's been in the league for so long, and his approach is so good. … It's really fun to watch. He's just been spectacular for us.”
Goldschmidt’s recent brilliance would warrant the spotlight under any circumstance, but his production has proven all the more pivotal in the wake of three-time MVP Aaron Judge landing on the injured list due to a fractured rib. While the Yankees expect Judge to return at some point this season, it’s unlikely that will happen before the All-Star break, which puts pressure on the rest of New York’s position-player group to step up in the meantime.
“I think we're definitely going to maybe have to win more games kind of like this, with a little bit more of a team effort,” Goldschmidt said postgame Monday, after the Yankees used eight pitchers and emptied their bench to secure a 7-5 victory in 10 innings.
It wasn’t the most explosive offensive display, but nine Yankees hitters reached base, and the bullpen was able to keep Cleveland in check long enough for New York to reclaim the lead in extras on a go-ahead, bases-loaded single from Bellinger on a full-count fastball from Shawn Armstrong.
“It wasn’t pretty, but very gritty,” Boone said.
Even without Judge, the Yankees’ roster is flush with impact talent around the diamond, not to mention an elite rotation. In addition to the Goldschmidt renaissance, Rice has been one of the biggest breakout bats of the season, making an MVP case of his own in Judge’s absence. Bellinger has been terrific on both sides of the ball. Chisholm is starting to heat up after a cold start; he supplied the go-ahead solo homer in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s 3-2 victory. Before that, rookie outfielder Spencer Jones did his best Judge impression, with a 112-mph exit velocity, 443-foot blast, the first homer of his major-league career.
Not every hitter will contribute at every turn — heck, Rice went 5-for-24 with zero RBI across these six games vs. Cleveland — but the Yankees have thus far gotten enough from up and down the roster to continue winning without their captain.
“The guy's probably the best hitter on the planet. He wins games for us by himself at times, definitely on the offensive side,” Goldschmidt said of playing without Judge. “So you know, we may have to do some things a little bit different, like tonight, whether that's just moving runners or stealing bases. It's stuff we're already trying to do, but … that's what it’s going to take until he's back.”
One of the biggest stories of the season has been the depth and quality of this year’s rookie class, with super-hyped top prospects and surprise first-year contributors playing key roles across the league. And while most of these rising stars are hitters, there’s also an abundance of young talent to be found on the mound, and few rookie hurlers have emerged more prominently than Cleveland’s Messick.
Messick showed well in his initial big-league cameo last season, posting a 2.72 ERA across seven starts but not accumulating enough innings to exhaust his rookie eligibility. That made him an intriguing Rookie of the Year candidate entering this season, with a secure spot in the Guardians’ rotation creating the rare opportunity for a rookie starter to amass a full season’s worth of innings. Messick shined across his first four starts (1.05 ERA in 25 ⅔ innings), including taking a no-hitter into the ninth inning against Baltimore on April 16. But the 25-year-old southpaw has been less dominant since that gem, completing six innings only once in his past 10 outings.
That trend continued Wednesday, when Messick was pulled in the sixth inning after issuing a two-out walk to Jazz Chisholm Jr., marking the fifth time this season that the rookie has been removed after 5 ⅔ innings. Chisholm came around to score when Anthony Volpe doubled off reliever Matt Festa, putting a fourth earned run (and fifth on the day) on Messick’s ledger.
But even with Wednesday’s uneven showing putting a dent in his run-prevention résumé, Messick’s ERA sits at a sterling 2.68 — the fourth-lowest mark among qualified American League starting pitchers, not just first-year arms. And despite his recent falterings in the middle frames, Messick has amassed an impressive workload: His 80 ⅔ innings pitched are eighth in MLB and first among rookie hurlers by a wide margin (Boston’s Connelly Early ranks second at 71 innings, while the Angels’ Walbert Urena is third at 55 ⅓.).
If Messick is to work his way back to the forefront of a crowded AL Rookie of the Year conversation, some adjustments need to be made. But regardless of his awards chances, this is an extremely promising young arm that the Guardians can feel great about building around for years to come.
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In fact, only the Dodgers and Astros have won more regular-season games than the Yankees and Guardians since the start of the 2016 season. All that regular-season success has resulted in frequent trips to October, culminating in several clashes in the postseason: Cleveland and New York have faced off four times over that span (2017 ALDS, 2020 AL wild card, 2022 ALDS, 2024 ALCS), with the Yankees triumphing in all four (Cleveland last vanquished New York in the 2007 ALDS).
With so much recent history between these ballclubs, even their non-October meet-ups have generated a bit more buzz than your average regular-season series. And this year, the two scheduled showdowns between Cleveland and New York were packed into a span of eight days, offering a compelling sample of data between two clubs that project to be relevant in the American League postseason picture.
The Guardians took the first two games in the Bronx last week, including tagging emergent Yankees ace Cam Schlittler with his worst start of the season (4.1 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 0 BB, 3 K) and Gavin Williams outdueling Gerrit Cole. The Yankees responded by winning the series finale at home, then carried that momentum to Cleveland this week, where they earned narrow victories at Progressive Field on Mondayand Tuesday before cruising to a more comfortable win Wednesday, completing the sweep and clinching the season series.
Whether these teams will meet again in October remains to be seen, but here are a few takeaways from their early-season encounters.
Cleveland showing first signs of trouble after strong start to the season
After finishing April at .500 (16-16), the Guardians found their groove in May. A red-hot stretch in the middle of the month featured four consecutive series victories, including a four-game sweep of their reeling rivals, the Detroit Tigers. A win in Philadelphia on May 24 brought Cleveland’s record to 32-23 and its lead atop the AL Central to 4.5 games. With little resistance from their divisional foes outside the young and hungry White Sox, a golden opportunity seemed to be surfacing for Cleveland to create significant distance atop the division and establish itself as one of the few no-doubt contenders in the American League.
Instead, since that scorching sequence of 11 wins in 13 games last month, the Guardians have struggled to recapture their momentum and build upon their division lead. They’ve lost four of their past five series (Nationals, Red Sox, Rangers, Yankees), and any positive vibes enjoyed early last week in the Bronx were wiped away by the poor results in the following four contests against the Yankees. Notably, the Guardians suffered their first sweep of the season on Wednesday, leaving the Braves and Dodgers as the only remaining teams that have avoided being swept in 2026.
Now Cleveland is 37-33 and technically tied for first with the 35-31 White Sox, who have continued to play well and just got some reinforcements in the form of top prospect Braden Montgomery, who hit a walk-off homer Tuesday in his MLB debut. Remarkably, the Guardians have yet to play the White Sox this season, but those upcoming games — a three-game set June 22-24 in Chicago and a four-game series July 2-5 at Progressive Field — are suddenly marquee matchups, which few would have projected a few months ago.
Meanwhile, Tigers ace Tarik Skubal is on his way back from his revolutionary elbow surgery and could fuel a Detroit resurgence to flush its miserable first couple of months. The Royals and Twins would each have to show a lot more to be considered threatening to Cleveland, but they aren’t that far behind.
Recent slog aside, the Guardians have played more good baseball than bad this season, and they deserve some faith that they’ll course-correct in short order. Still, what looked to be an easy path to a third consecutive division title no longer looks as clear. Cleveland has some work to do.
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Paul Goldschmidt is turning back the clock
When the Yankees re-signed Goldschmidt to a one-year, $4 million deal in February — a finishing touch on New York’s run-it-back offseason — it was unclear what to expect from the veteran first baseman, in terms of both impact and role. With Ben Rice expected to assume an every-day role at first base and Giancarlo Stanton projected to clog the DH spot, Goldschmidt looked like a bench bat at best, one who would be called upon occasionally to mash against left-handers. He had tailed off hard down the stretch last season, posting a .653 OPS over the final two months — an ominous trajectory as he entered his age-38 season.
That Stanton landed on the injured list in late April, opening up more playing time for Goldschmidt with Rice assuming more DH days, didn’t exactly come as a shock. But because Goldschmidt played so infrequently during the first month (just 29 plate appearances in the Yankees’ first 27 games) and because of his discouraging form toward the end of last season, expectations for his contributions remained low. Yet since Stanton went down, Goldschmidt has been not just one of the Yankees’ best bats but also one of the best hitters in the league: His 163 wRC+ since April 26 ranks ninth in MLB, ahead of Rice and even Aaron Judge over that span.
Goldschmidt homered in both series openers vs. Cleveland, bringing his season total to eight in 42 games after he hit just 10 across 146 contests last season. While he has done the majority of his damage against lefties, Goldschmidt proved his potency against same-handed pitching on Monday, when he took a 94.6-mph cutter from Guardians right-hander Gavin Williams over the high wall in left field for a two-run homer in the top of the first inning.
"We've needed him to step up, and he certainly has,” manager Aaron Boone said afterward. “He's just been really productive, whether it's a big hit with runners in scoring position, whether it's flashing the power and still that real, real dangerous presence against lefties. So to get us off to a good start tonight against obviously a really good pitcher in Williams over there was big.”
“He’s a Hall of Famer in my book,” Yankees starter Will Warren said. “38 and still doing it.”
Still doing it, indeed. With his 39th birthday approaching in September, Goldschmidt is older than all but two position players who have appeared in an MLB game in 2026. And those two — D-backs first baseman Carlos Santana, who is currently on the injured list, and Andrew McCutchen, who was released by the Rangers on May 28 — aren’t exactly thriving.
Whenever his career concludes, Goldschmidt’s case for Cooperstown will be one of the more fascinating to debate among this generation of highly accomplished hitters. But for now, he’ll keep adding to his résumé — and his teammates will keep enjoying the show.
"He's unbelievable,” outfielder Cody Bellinger said. “He's been in the league for so long, and his approach is so good. … It's really fun to watch. He's just been spectacular for us.”
Yankees’ offense proving its mettle without Aaron Judge
Goldschmidt’s recent brilliance would warrant the spotlight under any circumstance, but his production has proven all the more pivotal in the wake of three-time MVP Aaron Judge landing on the injured list due to a fractured rib. While the Yankees expect Judge to return at some point this season, it’s unlikely that will happen before the All-Star break, which puts pressure on the rest of New York’s position-player group to step up in the meantime.
“I think we're definitely going to maybe have to win more games kind of like this, with a little bit more of a team effort,” Goldschmidt said postgame Monday, after the Yankees used eight pitchers and emptied their bench to secure a 7-5 victory in 10 innings.
It wasn’t the most explosive offensive display, but nine Yankees hitters reached base, and the bullpen was able to keep Cleveland in check long enough for New York to reclaim the lead in extras on a go-ahead, bases-loaded single from Bellinger on a full-count fastball from Shawn Armstrong.
“It wasn’t pretty, but very gritty,” Boone said.
Even without Judge, the Yankees’ roster is flush with impact talent around the diamond, not to mention an elite rotation. In addition to the Goldschmidt renaissance, Rice has been one of the biggest breakout bats of the season, making an MVP case of his own in Judge’s absence. Bellinger has been terrific on both sides of the ball. Chisholm is starting to heat up after a cold start; he supplied the go-ahead solo homer in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s 3-2 victory. Before that, rookie outfielder Spencer Jones did his best Judge impression, with a 112-mph exit velocity, 443-foot blast, the first homer of his major-league career.
Not every hitter will contribute at every turn — heck, Rice went 5-for-24 with zero RBI across these six games vs. Cleveland — but the Yankees have thus far gotten enough from up and down the roster to continue winning without their captain.
“The guy's probably the best hitter on the planet. He wins games for us by himself at times, definitely on the offensive side,” Goldschmidt said of playing without Judge. “So you know, we may have to do some things a little bit different, like tonight, whether that's just moving runners or stealing bases. It's stuff we're already trying to do, but … that's what it’s going to take until he's back.”
Parker Messick starting to fade — but not by much
One of the biggest stories of the season has been the depth and quality of this year’s rookie class, with super-hyped top prospects and surprise first-year contributors playing key roles across the league. And while most of these rising stars are hitters, there’s also an abundance of young talent to be found on the mound, and few rookie hurlers have emerged more prominently than Cleveland’s Messick.
Messick showed well in his initial big-league cameo last season, posting a 2.72 ERA across seven starts but not accumulating enough innings to exhaust his rookie eligibility. That made him an intriguing Rookie of the Year candidate entering this season, with a secure spot in the Guardians’ rotation creating the rare opportunity for a rookie starter to amass a full season’s worth of innings. Messick shined across his first four starts (1.05 ERA in 25 ⅔ innings), including taking a no-hitter into the ninth inning against Baltimore on April 16. But the 25-year-old southpaw has been less dominant since that gem, completing six innings only once in his past 10 outings.
That trend continued Wednesday, when Messick was pulled in the sixth inning after issuing a two-out walk to Jazz Chisholm Jr., marking the fifth time this season that the rookie has been removed after 5 ⅔ innings. Chisholm came around to score when Anthony Volpe doubled off reliever Matt Festa, putting a fourth earned run (and fifth on the day) on Messick’s ledger.
But even with Wednesday’s uneven showing putting a dent in his run-prevention résumé, Messick’s ERA sits at a sterling 2.68 — the fourth-lowest mark among qualified American League starting pitchers, not just first-year arms. And despite his recent falterings in the middle frames, Messick has amassed an impressive workload: His 80 ⅔ innings pitched are eighth in MLB and first among rookie hurlers by a wide margin (Boston’s Connelly Early ranks second at 71 innings, while the Angels’ Walbert Urena is third at 55 ⅓.).
If Messick is to work his way back to the forefront of a crowded AL Rookie of the Year conversation, some adjustments need to be made. But regardless of his awards chances, this is an extremely promising young arm that the Guardians can feel great about building around for years to come.
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