(Photo credit: Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images)

The Cleveland Guardians and Kansas City Royals emerged as surprise playoff teams last season.

Now comes the challenging part: Meeting heightened expectations.

The Guardians and Royals will each look to begin marching back to the playoffs Thursday afternoon, when Cleveland visits Kansas City in an Opening Day clash of American League Central rivals.

Right-hander Tanner Bibee (12-8, 3.47 ERA in 2024) is slated to take the mound for the Guardians against left-hander Cole Ragans (11-9, 3.14 ERA). It will be the first Opening Day start for both pitchers.

Both teams will enter this season with the same core they unveiled last season, when their breakout seasons each ended with an American League playoff series loss to the pennant-winning New York Yankees.

The Guardians went 92-69 and won the AL Central before falling to the Yankees in five games in the AL Championship Series under Stephen Vogt, who won AL Manager of the Year honors in his first season at the helm after directing Cleveland to a 16-win improvement from 2023.

The playoff berth was the seventh in the last 12 seasons for the Guardians, who are seeking the franchise's first championship since 1948 -- the longest title drought in baseball.

'Our goal is going to be the same: Win the World Series,' Vogt said this winter.

The Guardians made their biggest offseason moves Dec. 10, when they traded Gold Glove second baseman Andres Gimenez to the Toronto Blue Jays and then picked up right-hander Luis Ortiz from the Pittsburgh Pirates in a three-way deal.

Ortiz will open the season as the Guardians' No. 3 starter. The Guardians' rotation will be backed by a bullpen led by closer Emmanuel Clase, who finished third in the AL Cy Young balloting after racking up a league-high 47 saves and finishing with a 0.61 ERA.

The lineup will once again be anchored by superstar third baseman Jose Ramirez, who continued to build a Hall of Fame case by hitting .279 with 39 homers, 118 RBIs and a career-high 41 stolen bases last season. Ramirez is expected to bat second this season, behind Steven Kwan, after making 152 starts in the No. 3 hole last year.

A long rebuild finally bore fruit last season for the Royals, who earned the second wild card by going 86-76 -- a 30-win improvement over their 2023 finish. Kansas City swept the Baltimore Orioles in a best-of-three wild card series before they were eliminated by the Yankees in a four-game AL Division Series.

'I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves,' Ragans said. 'More so than what other people put on us. Obviously, we want to win. That's our end goal.'

The resurgence by the Royals -- whose winning record was their first since 2015, when they won the World Series -- was fueled by a breakout season by shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and an import-filled starting rotation that was as durable as it was effective.

Witt, whom the Royals selected with the second pick of the 2019 draft, led the majors with a .332 batting average and went 30/30 -- with 32 homers and 31 steals -- for the second straight season on his way to finishing second in the AL MVP balloting behind the Yankees' Aaron Judge.

Ragans, who was acquired from the Texas Rangers in July 2023, teamed up with free agent additions Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha to go 40-26 with a 3.15 ERA over 84 starts.

The Royals added around Witt and their big three pitchers over the winter by acquiring Jonathan India from the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for starter Brady Singer and signing Carlos Estevez to a two-year contract. India is expected to bat leadoff ahead of Witt while Estevez is penciled in as the closer ahead of Lucas Erceg, who was 11-of-13 in save opportunities after being acquired from the Athletics at last summer's trade deadline.

Bibee is 2-0 with a 3.67 ERA in five career starts against the Royals, including 2-0 with a 4.09 ERA in four starts last season. Ragans is 0-2 with a 5.93 ERA in three career starts against the Guardians, including 0-1 with a 6.23 ERA in two starts last season.

--Field Level Media