Tanner Bibee, Guardians finish homestand with 2-0 loss to Astros

CLEVELAND — Tanner Bibee made two early mistakes and, with his hitters providing no support, they cost him and the Guardians a game Wednesday afternoon. Bibee allowed a leadoff double to Carlos Correa followed by a homer to the second batter Yordan Alvarez and the Astros made it stand, handing Cleveland a 2-0 loss in the rubber match of a three-game series at Progressive Field. "Outside of that, I thought Tanner was really good," manager Stephen Vogt said of the right-hander, who allowed the two runs on five hits over six innings. "They made him work, but I thought he was landing the changeup to both lefties and righties, using both fastballs, all the breaking balls. I thought he pitched an excellent game. "Unfortunately, the first two hitters ended up being the difference in the game." "Definitely, just a poorly executed pitch, but I think it was the right pitch in the spot if I threw it where (catcher) Bo (Naylor) wanted me to throw it," Bibee said of the hanging curveball that Alvarez, who had three of Houston's six hits, drove an estimated 422 feet out to right-center. "It was supposed to be in the dirt, threw it up. And the guy, as good as he is and how hot he is right now, it's going to happen. Just can't make the mistake." Bibee didn't make many the rest of the outing, retiring six straight after Alvarez's 11th homer and only allowing one more hit through the fifth. It was his second straight quality start after building up a 6.38 ERA over his first four. "I feel like I've had one egregiously bad start. And honestly, other than that, I feel like I've thrown the ball really well," Bibee said. "We faced kind of a gauntlet (of quality teams) in this first, however many weeks. And to be in the spot we are right now, and myself, I feel like obviously we're not satisfied or anything like that, but it's a really good thing to build off of and to keep going." The Guardians only had five hits — two from Chase DeLauter, who had a game-winning triple Tuesday night. They managed only three in six innings off Astros starter Peter Lambert, who was making his second appearance after beginning the season at Triple-A. The right-hander allowed four runs in five innings of his first outing. Cleveland's best chance off Lambert came in the third, when Steven Kwan and DeLauter had back-to-back one-out base hits. But Jose Ramirez and Kyle Manzardo each struck out swinging on 3-2 pitches. With a runner on first and two outs in the fifth, Lambert struck out Ramirez on three pitches. Stranding baserunners has been an issue for the Guardians recently. "I think we're playing it up more than we should," Vogt said. "I think we just need to continue to have good at-bats. I think today was more about the pitching than it was about at-bat quality. I thought they threw the ball excellent against us today. "It'd be great to come through in every single situation. We've come through in a lot of big situations this year. Just this series in particular, they pitched us pretty tough and the big hit was hard to come by." The Guardians only got two hits after the third but made it interesting in the ninth, putting two aboard off former Cleveland reliever Enyel De Los Santos on an infield single from Daniel Schneemann and a two-out walk from Naylor. But Brayan Rocchio popped up a 3-2 pitch for the final out to end his career-high eight-game hitting streak. Though they dropped the series to the Astros, the Guardians went 4-3 on the homestand, taking three of four from the Orioles. "I thought we played good baseball," Vogt said. "I think this series in particular could have gone either way. (We) could have swept, but could haves don't count. So we just got to continue to work every day. "I thought this was a very good homestand. This 13-game stretch was long and these guys worked really hard and we're going to enjoy this off day and get ready to go Friday night." Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @CAwesomeheimer on X.