At 15-13, the Cleveland Guardians are keeping pace in the American League Central. They trail the Detroit Tigers by 2.5 games for the division lead, and that’s despite some early-season struggles all around the roster. You can point to various reasons that they have a -28 run differential one month into the season. The Guardians’ offense isn’t a world-beater by any means, with the ninth-fewest runs scored. But the starting pitching certainly hasn’t held up its end of the bargain through April. Cleveland starters rank 27th with a 5.24 ERA. With the second-worst FIP at 5.12, they’ve earned every bit of their MLB-worst combined -0.1 fWAR through 28 starts. No matter what stat you want to look at, the Guardians’ rotation ranks in the bottom-third of the majors. Quality starts? Dead last with three. WHIP? 29th with a 1.54 mark. Batting average against? 27th at .264. Strikeout rate? 23rd with 20.1 percent. Walk rate? 29th with 11.8 percent. You get the idea. There’s a Lack of Experience in the Guardians’ Rotation There’s not much MLB experience in a starting five that features Gavin Williams, Tanner Bibee, Luis L. Ortiz, Ben Lively and Logan Allen. Combined, they have just over seven years of MLB service time, with an average age of 27.6. And that’s even pulled up by the 33-year-old Lively. Regardless of who’s currently in the rotation, the Guardians need someone to step up. Any internal help is still a long way off. Veteran Shane Bieber is still a ways away as he recovers from last April’s devastating Tommy John surgery. He’s expected back mid-season. John Means, another veteran recovering from Tommy John, won’t be able to help until late this season. Once an organization seemingly bursting at the seams with promising pitching prospects, things haven’t panned out for Cleveland, at least not yet. With names like two-time Cy Young winner Corey Kluber and Bieber, the 2020 Cy Young winner, echoing in the halls of Progressive Field, the newest crop of stud pitching prospects hasn’t quite found its footing. One former top prospect who definitely won’t be able to help is Triston McKenzie. The former top-50 MLB Pipeline prospect showed promise in 2020 and 2022 but fell on hard times and was recently designated for assignment. Who Can Lead the Guardians’ Rotation? It remains to be seen if any of the other remaining former top prospects still in the rotation can grab the reins and lead the staff out of the abyss. Coming into the season as the de facto ace, Bibee (2-2) has a 5.19 ERA in five starts. Cleveland’s former No. 5 prospect finally pulled things together in his last start. The right-hander posted his first quality start of the year against the New York Yankees, with two runs on five hits over six innings. Williams (2-2) has struggled to live up to his prospect hype after ranking as the team’s No. 2 prospect in 2023. He carries a 5.14 ERA through six starts. After putting together his best outing of the season last week against the Yankees, the former first-round draft pick got obliterated in his Monday start against the Minnesota Twins. He needed 61 pitches to get through two innings, giving up four runs on seven hits. Allen (1-2) had been leading the way until his most recent start. The Guardians’ No. 8 prospect in 2023 had a svelte 2.11 ERA through his first four appearances. However, he got blown up by the Boston Red Sox to the tune of seven runs on nine hits through 4 1/3 innings on Sunday. He’ll now enter May with a 4.21 ERA. Don’t Rely on the Guardians’ Veteran Starters to Step Up The lone veteran currently starting for the Guardians, Lively (1-2), doesn’t seem like a likely candidate to step up. He and his 4.40 ERA have had a rollercoaster of a start to the season. The righty has given up four runs in three of his games and pitched two five-inning shutouts. He has served up at least one home run in the four starts in which opposing teams have scored against him. With a career 4.53 ERA in 359 2/3 MLB innings spread over six seasons coming into 2025, it’s hard to imagine him duplicating his career-best 3.81 ERA from 2024, his first year in Cleveland. Finally, Ortiz (2-3) hasn’t been able to replicate his career season from a year ago, either. The right-hander isn’t exactly performing how the Guardians had likely hoped for when they brought him over as part of the Spencer Horwitz flip after dealing second baseman Andrés Giménez to the Toronto Blue Jays. After posting a 3.32 ERA in 37 games (15 starts) for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2024, his current 5.96 ERA is the highest of the bunch in Cleveland this year. Despite posting a career-high 10.87 K/9 and 26.5 percent strikeout rate through five starts, that has also come with a 4.91 BB/9. Can the Rotation Be Good Enough to Help the Guardians Compete? If you’re looking for a silver lining, the Guardians did make the playoffs last season with a 4.40 ERA from the starting rotation. That was the sixth-highest mark in the majors. They still have their work cut out for them to get their current 5.24 ERA (and all their other unsightly stats) down to a more competitive level. The Guardians’ success last year was boosted by a dominant bullpen. The top bullpen in baseball ran a MLB-best 2.57 ERA and 7.7 fWAR. That was a big reason the pitching staff as a whole posted the second-lowest team ERA at 3.61. However, so far this season, Guardians relievers have a middling 3.79 ERA. Just one month into the baseball calendar, there’s plenty of season left. But they can’t afford to wait for Bieber. To have a chance to compete with the first-place Tigers and get back to the postseason, the Guardians are going to need someone, and likely more than one starter, to step up sooner rather than later.