Cleveland Rocks: Guardians at Angels Preview & Odds
Guardians Are Scorching Hot

After a disappointing 2023 season in which they went just 76-86, the Cleveland Guardians weren’t expected to even be an MLB playoff team by a lot of people around the baseball world.
However, has Cleveland does often, the Guardians have beaten those expectations as one of MLB’s best teams and are riding a six-game winning streak heading into this weekend’s series against the Los Angeles Angels.
As this Guardians vs Angels preview will explain, the Guardians are very slight -108 moneyline favorites for Friday’s opener making this game pretty close to a toss-up from a better perspective. The total is a high 8.5 runs.
Cleveland is fresh off a three-game sweep of the lowly New York Mets which followed a sweep of the Minnesota Twins.
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Everything is clicking for the Guardians right now, from getting timely offense whenever runs are needed to spectacular defense and consistent dominance from the bullpen.
It also helps to have a guy like José RamÃrez, who is already building a MVP-caliber resume for this year. Cleveland is a team you can’t miss on the MLB schedule today.
While their overall record is rather pedestrian, the Angels are playing well as of late too. They have won five of seven and just got series wins against the division rival Texas Rangers and Houston Astros.
Tyler Anderson and the rest of the starting rotation have really helped Los Angeles regain some respectability after a brutal start to the year.
Guardians vs Angels 
Day/Time:
Records: Guardians (33-17)/Angels (20-30)
Location: Angel Stadium; Anaheim, California
Cleveland’s Pitching Has Been Awesome
Despite losing Shane Bieber to Tommy John surgery in April, the Guardians’ pitching staff hasn’t really missed a beat.
Led by Tanner Bibee, Triston McKenzie and journeyman Ben Lively, Cleveland’s rotation is solidly middle-of-the-pack in baseball and the bullpen — anchored by close-to-unhittable closer Emmanuel Clase — is No. 1 in MLB in pretty much every statistical category.
Any Guardians vs Angels preview has to note how stingy the Guardians are once their relievers take over.
Bibee and Lively (as well as Logan Allen) will start MLB games over the weekend for Cleveland, with Allen kicking things off on Friday night followed by Bibee on Saturday and Lively on Sunday.
None of these guys’ stuff (or their numbers) will blow you away but they throw strikes and generally do a good job of keeping the Guardians in every game they pitch.
Couple that with Cleveland’s elite defense and very opportunistic offense, and it makes sense why they’re 16 games over .500.
So, Cleveland is one of the better MLB predictions today that you can make. The Guardians are very well-managed — by rookie manager Stephen Vogt — team which takes full advantage of any mistakes that it opponent makes and is extremely fundamentally sound.
They won’t blow you away or completely dominate their opposition; they’ll do pretty much just what they need to do to win games. You can’t give this team an inch because it’ll then take a foot.
Angels Need To Keep Hitting Home Runs
One of the more interesting aspects of the Angels’ season is that, even with the offseason loss of Shohei Ohtani to the Dodgers and in-season loss of Mike Trout to knee surgery, what has kept Los Angeles treading water has been the long ball.
And, this Guardians vs Angels preview should note that one of the Guardians’ pitching staff’s few weaknesses is allowing home runs. Cleveland has given up 50 home runs on the MLB season, the sixth-most in the AL.
The Angels have hit the seventh-most home runs in baseball, still led by Trout’s 10 — none since April 24th — and Taylor Ward’s 10.
Former top prospect Jo Adell has nine and youngsters Zach Neto (six), Nolan Schanuel (five), Logan O’Hoppe (four) and waiver claim Kevin Pillar (four) have all contributed with dingers. Los Angeles is only 12th in runs scored so the home run ball has allowed the Angels to punch above their weight in offensive production, so to speak.
They’ll need that to keep going if they have any chance against Cleveland considering what the Los Angeles Angels standings in the AL West look like right now.
Also, the Angels will throw out Patrick Sandoval, José Soriano and Reid Detmers on the mound this weekend and Soriano is only one of the bunch who has done a good job of keeping the other team off the MLB scoreboard this season.
Go With The Guardians
Interestingly, the Guardians are only -108 moneyline favorites while the Angels are -102. Granted, Logan Allen hasn’t been great this season but that’s not a lot of respect for a Cleveland team currently 13 games ahead of Los Angeles in the MLB standings.
So, you should take the Guardians straight-up or on the runline at -1.5 runs if you’re feeling extra confident in them. Also, consider going with the over 8.5 runs scored at +105.
With how these teams have been scoring runs — and without their marquee arms on the mound on Friday — there could be plenty of runs.
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