Steven Kwan’s Power Anchors Career First In Guardians’ Victory Over Blue Jays
The Cleveland Guardians completed a three-game sweep against the Toronto Blue Jays with a 6-5 victory on Sunday afternoon.
Cleveland hit two home runs in the game, the first of which came from Steven Kwan.
The Guardians left fielder led off the bottom of the fourth inning with a 376-foot solo shot to right center field, which extended Cleveland’s lead to 5-3. While this swing of the bat added to the Guardians’ lead, it also secured an offensive career first for the two-time American League Gold Glove Award winner.
According to Stathead, Kwan has now homered in consecutive games for the first time in his MLB career. The 26-year-old also hit a solo home run against the Blue Jays this past Saturday.
Entering play on Sunday, he had also not hit a home run in consecutive games in 224 combined regular-season and postseason contests, nor in 156 collegiate games at Oregon State.
Kwan has experienced a power emergence so far this season for the Guardians. His seven home runs in just 49 games are already an MLB career-high, well outpacing his five homers in 158 contests last year and six long balls in 147 games in 2022.
Additionally, he would lead MLB with a .390 batting average and .448 on-base percentage, while also ranking top-10 with a 1.023 OPS (third) and .575 slugging percentage (sixth). However, after missing nearly a month with a left hamstring strain earlier this season, he is just shy of MLB’s plate appearances mark for qualified players.
At the moment, Kwan’s 1.023 OPS would rank behind only New York Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge (1.109) and Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani (1.030). His batting average would also be 69 points ahead of Ohtani’s .321 mark.
LOGAN POTOSKY
Logan Potosky is an aspiring play-by-play sports broadcaster who, to date, has called approximately 350+ hours of professional, college, and high school sporting events. He is currently the Play-by-Play Broadcaster for the Lake County Captains, the High-A Affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians. He graduated from John Carroll University in May of 2023 with a degree in Communication, with a concentration in Digital Media, and a minor in Entrepreneurship.