The Guardians got a big win and series clincher against the Marlins tonight and learned a valuable lesson about the importance of swinging the bat in the process.
Tanner Bibee had a solid start. Yes, he gave up four runs, but no home runs and the Marlins had only a .127 expected batting average for the game. His curveball was especially excellent. Here are some highlights (if MLB Film Room works here, as I’ve been told it does):
Meanwhile, the Guardians’ offense put in another good performance today against an excellent starting pitcher. Yesterday, they got four runs off of Eury Perez and today they scored five runs off of Edward Cabrera. Very impressive. Here’s Jose getting one of his three hits, an RBI single:
Kyle Manzardo got a clutch RBI, game-tying single to drive in Ramirez later in the game:
Now, after this, Gabriel Arias drove Jose Ramirez home for a go-ahead run in the fifth with a sacrifice fly. Then, in the 7th, Jose Ramirez got a single, made it second on an error, Gabriel Arias got hit by a pitch and CJ Kayfus reached base on a fielder’s choice because the Marlins stupidly thought they could throw Jose out at home. LOL. Then, David Fry ended up at the plate with one out and Jose Ramirez on third and Gabriel Arias on first. Fry began his at-bat by bunting a pitch foul, but then dispensed with the silly idea of giving up an out, put up a good at-bat, got a pitch on the inner part of the plate and drove it into left-field for an RBI single:
THEN, Brayan Rocchio tried to bunt TWICE and failed and then pulled a pitch into right for an RBI single:
So, yeah, don’t bunt. Swing the bat. Austin Hedges got two hits in this game, including a double, and a sacrifice fly. Good for him.
The bullpen was excellent today from Erik Sabrowski, to Hunter Gaddis, to Nic Enright, to Cade Smith who came in to clean-up some bad BABIP mess from Enright in the last out.
This was a great win and it was great to see this team come out and win one it really felt like they needed to have, and overcome some adversity to do it. And, hopefully, now they know that bunting is bad.