The Guardians picked a bad time to be stymied by a bullpen game and now they’ll need to figure out tough lefty Andrew Abbot to escape Cincinnati with one win against the Reds.
You can read Zach’s recap here, and my plea for the team to show some urgency with the dire situation in right field here. I realize they’re not going to do anything right now, but it felt good to write it, anyway.
Here’s Terry Pluto on Gabriel Arias. Here’s Tim Stebbins on Slade Cecconi’s excellent season debut yesterday. Here’s an article from FanGraphs’ Davy Andrews about pull-rate and squared-up-rate where Jose Ramirez shows up as a pull-rate god.
Sounds like Ben Lively is gonna end up getting Tommy John to me. I feel badly for him, what a grinder he is.
You’re going to hear a lot of people say “Look, this is who the Guardians always were. Their run differential and expected record told us that.” So, it’s time for this team to bear down and find a way to salvage this series and then go perform against AL Central foes and prove people wrong, again. They seem to love to do that.
AROUND MLB:
The Twins have won a ridiculous 13 games in a row. Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa are on the IL for a bit after a collision, but it hasn’t slowed them down. The Tigers and the Royals lost, at least.