The Guardians’ offense continued their hot streak immediately today, scoring *5* runs in the first off ex-Guardian Aaron Civale. They loaded the bases following a Manzardo HBP (intentional…?). Santana drove in two with this big hop grounder past the White Sox first baseman.
After Arias struck out and Naylor walked, Kayfus laced a bases-clearing double down the line to bring the run total to 5.
In the 3rd, Santana drove in Manzardo with an RBI single.
In the 4th, Kayfus scored on a Civale balk (lol), and Schneemann drove in Rocchio with an RBI single back up the middle. Santana walked with the bases loaded to bring the score to 9-1.
The Guardians did not score from this point on, as they were shut out by the White Sox bullpen over 5.2 innings.
Bibee, again, failed to turn his season around, although a good deal of that was because of some bad luck (bloop double, missed strike 3 call).
However, I don’t really feel the need to make excuses for Bibee, whether you deem that harsh or not. We’re at the point in the season (August) where you need to be playing your best baseball, and Bibee is playing some of his worst. We’re at the point in the season, during our hot streak, where you need your best players to be playing their best baseball, and Bibee is not. He continuously breaks down when faced with adversity. Although, silver lining, he didn’t give up any multi-run homers tonight! Just the solo shot for Brooks Baldwin, who’s sporting a sub .400 slugging percentage this year.
I’m not going to let this Bibee performance get in the way of a nice win tonight, but it is frustrating to keep watching him struggle. This team’s ceiling is somewhat sizeably determined based on the way Bibee is playing, so you really need him to figure his performance out to reach your peak as a club.
The Tigers lost, unfortunately, but the Yankees lost, and as of my writing this, both the Rangers and Mariners are losing.
It’s Cantillo vs. Burke tomorrow, and Cecconi vs. Martin on Sunday to wrap up the series.