'We'll be ready to go': Guardians preparing to handle five days of rest before playoffs

CLEVELAND — It's a situation that comes up every October : How do teams with first-round-series byes balance rest versus rust?

The Guardians and New York Yankees are locked into the top two seeds in the American League playoff bracket . It means they'll be able to skip the three-game wild card series that seeds 3-6 will have to play. That's three games the Guardians don't have to worry about, and it's potentially 27ish innings the pitching staff doesn't have to throw.

But it does create a situation in which the Guardians will have five off days in a row between their regular-season finale Sunday and Game 1 of the ALDS on Saturday, Oct. 5.

Pitchers won't go into that series on their normal routines, especially with the Guardians finishing the regular season against the Houston Astros, who are their most likely ALDS opponent. For example, Tanner Bibee and Matthew Boyd will instead throw sim games rather than face Houston this weekend.

It's often a question of what's actually better — the rest, or staying in rhythm, even if it means having to play two or three more games. Last year, three of the four teams with first-round byes lost.

But Guardians manager Stephen Vogt has no second thoughts about it. They want the rest.

"It's huge for our guys to get the rest — that's the way we're looking at this," Vogt said. "It's five days to turn your brain off, work on some things, get your body back to neutral as best you can. This late into the year, it gives us a chance to clean up things, work on some little detailed things that we maybe wouldn't get to if we were playing in the wild card series. So this is definitely a positive."

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It's especially the case when Alex Cobb is trying to recover from a blister to be an option on the ALDS roster. Boyd has pitched very well, but he's also coming off Tommy John surgery .

Several younger pitchers are having their innings at least monitored. The league's best bullpen will be heavily used once their playoffs start, so three fewer games will help save their arms a bit.

And Steven Kwan is coming off a back issue .

The Guardians are taking their bye, taking their rest, and preparing for Saturday without worrying that the cons outweigh the pros.

"That's people's thoughts. It's nothing other than that," Vogt said, referring to people who say the rest is a negative due to recent history. "That's an opinion of somebody who wasn't on that team. If you ask the Dodgers, I'm sure they'd say, 'Yeah, we didn't play well.' Things like that happen. There doesn't have to be a reason for it."

"So for us, these five days are for us to rest up, heal up, and we'll be ready to go."

Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis1@gannett.com. Read more about the Guardians at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/cleveland-guardians. Follow him on Threads at @ByRyanLewis .

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: 'We'll be ready to go': Guardians preparing to handle five days of rest before playoffs