In a week full of World Baseball Classic games, Guardians players have been finding success in Goodyear and in Houston.<\/p>\n
In Friday night\u2019s WBC game between the United States and Canada, Guardians\u2019 catcher Bo Naylor had a big night for his native Canada. Although his team lost and ultimately sent the U.S. to the semifinals, Naylor proved himself to fans all over the world. In the bottom of the sixth inning, Gabe Speier threw a two-out pitch to Naylor with a runner on base. He took that pitch deep into the seats at Daiken Field to cut the United States\u2019 lead to 5-3. While his team wasn\u2019t able to capitalize on that momentum and was ultimately eliminated from the WBC, Naylor made his name known on the biggest stage.<\/p>\n
Cleveland\u2019s 95th draft pick from 2020, Petey Halpin, has been making waves in Spring Training. The young centerfielder has had pretty consistent playing time this March, totalling 25 at bats so far. In that time, he\u2019s hit .320\/.433\/.640 with eight hits and two home runs. He\u2019s also continuing to show off his speed on the basepaths, claiming five stolen bases so far. He\u2019s played just six Major League games during the regular season so far, but if he can get consistent playing time in 2026, he\u2019ll definitely be a threat on the bases and at the plate.<\/p>\n
As the start of the regular season inches closer, so does the return of setup man Hunter Gaddis. Gaddis was shut down early in Spring Training due to right forearm tightness. He received an MRI to assess the damage and found that there was no damage, however, the team had shut him down just to be safe. Since then, he\u2019s been working towards a return with two bullpen sessions this week. While the timing of his return has yet to be fully determined, he\u2019s been making good progress and has \u201cbeen feeling really good\u201d according to Manager Stephen Vogt.<\/p>\n
This week\u2019s social media spotlight highlights Matt Wilkinson who pitched for the Lake County Captains in 2025. He\u2019s spent the last couple of weeks representing Team Canada at the World Baseball Classic, and he had a huge moment in Friday\u2019s game against the U.S. He struck out the team\u2019s heavy hitters, Cal Raleigh and Bryce Harper. The below video shows just how much spirit the young pitcher has.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a week full of World Baseball Classic games, Guardians players have been finding success in Goodyear and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,79106,2589,2565,538,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-626696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-guardians","11":"tag-cleveland-guardians-spring-training","12":"tag-cleveland-guardians-analysis","13":"tag-clevelandguardians","14":"tag-guardians","15":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116239954723824283","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}