MIAMI — The Guardians beat Marlins 4-1 on Saturday, and the box score tells a story that’s been rare for Tanner Bibee this year: he actually got some help. Bibee turned in a quality start, Steven Kwan and Patrick Bailey both delivered two-out, two-strike, two-run doubles, and Cleveland took a 2-0 lead in the series with a win that felt, for once, comfortable.
That matters for Bibee specifically. He opened this season 0-7 with six no-decisions — the kind of stretch that makes a pitcher start wondering if the baseball gods have it out for him personally. Saturday’s win pushed him to 3-9, and while the record still doesn’t reflect how he’s actually pitched most nights, it’s another step in the right direction.
Bibee Battles Through Traffic for the Win
Bibee allowed just one run on five hits and four walks over 6⅔ innings — a line that wasn’t spotless, but was more than enough given what Cleveland’s offense did on the other side. He worked around traffic most of the afternoon without letting Miami cash in more than once, the same kind of gritty, unglamorous outing that’s defined a lot of his season even when the results didn’t show it.
Eury Pérez, fresh off a seven-inning perfect stretch in his previous start, took the loss for Miami. Pérez allowed two runs on eight hits and two walks over six innings, striking out six — solid enough to keep his team in it, but not enough to hold off Cleveland’s bottom of the order.
Cleveland actually had its best look of the day right out of the gate. The Guardians loaded the bases with nobody out in the first, but Pérez struck out Kyle Manzardo and got Kahlil Watson to bounce into a double play to escape with the game scoreless. Miami answered with its own threat in the third, putting two on with two-out walks to Otto Lopez and Kyle Stowers, but couldn’t push a run across either.
Guardians Beat Marlins 4-1 as Kwan, Bailey Deliver Late
The Guardians beat Marlins 4-1 mostly because their bottom-of-the-order bats came through when it counted. Nine-hole hitter Steven Kwan lined a two-out, two-strike, two-run double to give Cleveland the lead it needed, and eight-hole hitter Patrick Bailey followed in the eighth with a two-out, two-strike, two-run double of his own — nearly a home run, settling for extra bases off the wall in left — to push the margin to 4-1.
Two bottom-of-the-order hitters, two two-out, two-strike, two-run doubles. That’s not a coincidence Cleveland is going to complain about.
The eighth-inning rally started with Manzardo getting hit by a pitch, Watson doubling him in, and then Bailey turning it into a two-run frame with his double off the wall. By the time Miami got the ball back, the game was mostly decided.
Kwan’s Two-Way Impact
Kwan didn’t just hit. He also saved a run in the bottom of the eighth with a sliding catch on a foul fly off the bat of Stowers — the kind of defensive play that doesn’t always make a highlight reel but matters plenty in a three-run game. It capped an afternoon where Kwan was arguably Cleveland’s most complete player on the field, doing damage with the bat and erasing a potential Miami threat with the glove.
Colin Holderman closed it out with a scoreless ninth for his fourth career save and first of the season, stepping in after All-Star closer Cade Smith had pitched in each of the previous three games and needed the rest.
Series Update and What’s Next
Cleveland has now won the first two games of this series, backing up Friday’s 3-2 win — in which Parker Messick and Chase DeLauter did the heavy lifting — with Saturday’s more balanced effort. The Guardians go for the sweep Sunday to close out the set in Miami.
For a Guardians team that’s spent much of the year trying to squeeze offense out of a lineup that hasn’t always cooperated, getting saved by the nine-hole and eight-hole hitters two innings apart is exactly the kind of formula worth bottling.
