Guardians 8, Giants 1: Adell Drives In Six, Including a 455-Foot Shot

August 18, 2026 - Cleveland - Jo Adell hit one 455 feet to left in the first, Steven Kwan and José Ramírez already on, and Progressive Field had the night it wanted. Three runs. First inning. Career-high RBI total still four hours away.

The Cleveland Guardians beat the San Francisco Giants 8-1. Adell went 3-for-4 with six RBI. Foster Griffin (14-4) threw six innings, five hits, one run, six strikeouts. Ramírez had three hits. Kwan kept reaching in front of Adell. That is a 8-1 that does not need extra innings or a closer.

455 feet, then two more singles

Carson Whisenhunt (3-4) lasted four innings, nine hits, seven runs, six earned. Adell's first swing was the 455-foot three-run homer, his 19th. 3-0.

Bryce Eldridge answered in the second with a 405-foot solo shot to center, his 14th. 3-1. That was San Francisco's entire night. Adell singled Kwan and Ramírez home in the bottom half. 5-1. Two innings, five RBI. The deficit was already four.

The fourth added two more. Brayan Rocchio scored on Adell's single to left. Drew Gilbert's error let Kwan take third. Angel Martínez grounded Kwan home. 7-1. Adell had six RBI before the fifth inning started. He did not add another. He did not need another.

Griffin's six, then a messy seventh

Griffin's line was the other half. Six innings. Eldridge's homer. Everything else was traffic he walked through: five hits, two walks, six punchouts. Trent Harris threw two hitless-looking innings of Giants relief with five strikeouts. Reiver Sanmartin gave Cleveland the eighth run in the seventh when Patrick Bailey forced a run home and Eldridge missed a catch at first, Martínez scoring. 8-1.

Matt Festa, Tim Herrin, and Craig Yoho finished it. Twelve Cleveland strikeouts as a staff. San Francisco left the tying run in another zip code. The Giants are 51-74. The Guardians are 61-65, still in the same crowded wild-card picture that does not care how pretty the homer looked, only that Adell drove in six.

Line: Guardians 8 runs on 12 hits; Giants 1 run on 7 hits, 2 errors; Griffin 6 IP, 1 ER; Adell 3-for-4, 6 RBI.

Ramírez went 3-for-5 with a double and two runs. Kwan kept setting the table. Adell kept clearing it. That is the version of this Cleveland lineup that wins 8-1 instead of 3-2.

A career night in a wild-card slog

Adell spent the first half of the year in Anaheim. Tuesday he set a career high in RBI in a Cleveland uniform and hit a ball 455 feet. Griffin is 14-4. Those two sentences are why Progressive Field sounded like August still mattered.

I would not call one 8-1 a playoff clinch. I would call Adell's six-RBI night the loudest Guardians card since the deadline moved him here. The Giants got a homer from Eldridge and two errors. That is not a series-turning road loss. It is a night you file under "Adell, 455, six."

Cleveland will take Griffin's six innings and ask him to do it again. San Francisco will ask Whisenhunt to last longer than four. Tuesday already has a winner, and he is the outfielder who hit the first pitch of his evening into the left-field seats with two men on.

AthX Engine angle

Cleveland finished with 18 AthX Engine team fantasy points, tied with Toronto for second on Tuesday. Adell scored 12 hitting fantasy points. Griffin scored 17 pitching fantasy points. AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) graded six RBI and six innings on the same 8-1, which is how a blowout shows up on both boards.

Explore the AthX marketplace for current player pages.

*Sources: ESPN box score, MLB.com gameday, CBS Sports, AthX Engine daily scoring for August 18, 2026. AthX Engine fantasy scoring is for information only and is not financial advice.*