1 big mistake Stephen Vogt made in Guardians' Game 3 loss to Detroit

If you're looking for who to blame for the Cleveland Guardians' shutout loss in ALDS Game 3 against the Detroit Tigers, you can start with the lineup. Jose Ramirez and Co. have now gone a whopping 20 straight innings without scoring a single run, and it's basically impossible for any team or any manager to win a playoff game like that.

But just because the blame game starts there certainly doesn't mean it ends there. While skipper Stephen Vogt can't swing the bat for his players, he didn't exactly cover himself in glory in Game 3 either. In particular, one big decision early in the game put Vogt's offense behind the eight ball for the rest of the day — and showed just how wide the gap is between he and his counterpart, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch.

Stephen Vogt let A.J. Hinch dictate Game 3

At the start of the postseason, Hinch described his pitching plan behind Tarik Skubal as "chaos" — Detroit doesn't use any other traditional starters, instead mixing and matching for the entire game and leaning on what was one of the best bullpens in baseball down the stretch of the regular season. That was the certainly the case in Game 3: Righty reliever Keider Montero opened and was followed by five different Tigers pitchers.

All of which makes things difficult for an opposing manager; instead of setting a lineup with several innings and multiple at-bats against the same starter in mind, you now have to do so without knowing who that lineup will be facing after the first inning or so. But the way Vogt responded to Hinch's challenge left a lot to be desired: Rather than playing his own game, Vogt caved, reacting to what Hinch was doing and hamstringing his offense in the process.

Vogt started Kyle Manzardo at first base and Will Brennan in right. But after Montero gave way to lefty Brant Hurter, Vogt tried to mix and match along with Hinch, swapping in David Fry for Manzardo and Jhonkensy Noel for Brennan. You can understand the idea, but in practice all it did was burn half of Vogt's bench without really giving him any tactical advantage. Manzardo and Brennan were done after just an inning, while Hinch still had an entire bullpen to pull from when deciding who he wanted to face Fry, Noel and the rest of the Guardians lineup. Fry and Noel combined to go 0-for-7, while Hinch never seemed to have to deviate from his pregame script.

Again, some of that comes down to the hitters: A great way to knock the Tigers off schedule would be to knock one of their pitchers out of the game. But Vogt still needs to respond better, and his chosen course of action meant that he had virtually no flexibility in the later innings. The result? It was light-hitting backup catcher Austin Hedges taking the game's final at-bat, the lone pinch-hitting option left with the game on the line. Cleveland probably isn't going anywhere unless Jose Ramirez and Josh Naylor turn it on, but in a low-scoring series, the Guardians need every edge they can get.