The Guardians are arguably the hottest team in baseball right now and the once-laughable AL Central finally has a legitimate threat. They dispatched of the Twins with relative ease and have outscored the White Sox 18-9 in two wins in a series the White Sox desperately needed (and probably needed to sweep). The White Sox send Johnny Cueto to the mound and he owned the Guardians last time out (8 2/3 scoreless innings on Aug. 20). I like them to get better looks like this time around. Plus, everything is coming up Guardians. Shane Bieber starts and he has a 1.68 ERA in his last 10 starts, too.

Shane Bieber is 7-3 on the road and has picked up a win in three straight starts. Johnny Cueto has a 3.89 ERA at home. I think Cleveland gets the sweep here and will do what they can to lock down the AL Central as soon as possible.

The White Sox had their chance to compete for the division, but they blew it by losing each of the first two games in this series. The Guardians now have their ace in Shane Bieber going to push the division lead to 7 games with about 12 games to go to essentially ice it for them. He is 4-2 with a 1.81 ERA in his last seven starts. He has not allowed more than 1 earned run in five of his last six starts. Johnny Cueto has been great all season but he was hit hard in his last outing. He did pitch 8.2 scoreless innings against the Guardians last time he faced them, but I think the White Sox know they are out of the playoffs now and have given up. Even if they win, they’d still be 5 games back with 12 games to go which is pretty insurmountable. I like the Guardians on the road to stay hot.