{"id":658574,"date":"2026-04-02T11:01:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/658574\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T11:01:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:01:41","slug":"dominant-gavin-williams-sends-guardians-home-with-a-winning-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/658574\/","title":{"rendered":"Dominant Gavin Williams Sends Guardians Home With A Winning Record"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to brilliant pitching by Gavin Williams, the Cleveland Guardians will face their Friday, April 3 home opener with a winning, 4-3 record.<\/p>\n

Williams dominated the Dodgers in the game.<\/p>\n

The Guardians will face the Chicago Cubs in what is projected to be pleasant weather in downtown Cleveland.<\/p>\n

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But on the opening season road trip, Gavin Williams was brilliant in his second start of the season for the Guardians.<\/p>\n

The 6-6, 250 pound Williams threw seven, two-hit, shutout innings against the vaunted Los Angels Dodgers on Wednesday, April 1.<\/p>\n

The Guardians defeated the Dodgers 4-1, to win the series, two games to one.<\/p>\n

Williams got the win, while Yoshinobu Yamamoto, an ace of the Dodgers rotation, took the loss.<\/p>\n

\"MLB<\/p>\n

Los Angeles, CA – March 31: Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman (5) smiles while heading back to the dugout during the eight inning of a MLB game against the Cleveland Guardians at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 in Los Angeles, CA. (Photo by Ronaldo Bola\u00f1os\/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Freddie Freeman broke up the shutout with a loud home run on a fastball to dead center field off Guardians closer Cade Smith in the 9th inning.<\/p>\n

The right-handed Williams, 26, was coming off an opening week start that saw him struggle mightily with command and control against the Seattle Mariners in Seattle.<\/p>\n

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Williams went five innings in that first start, yielding two hits, and three earned runs to the Mariners. But he walked six, on his way to taking the loss.<\/p>\n

It was impressive that on April Fools Day, Williams was certainly fooling Dodgers hitters. He threw an array of fastballs, sweepers, and sliders to keep the Dodgers off balance.<\/p>\n

In defeating the Dodgers, Williams stuck out 10, and walked three.<\/p>\n

The Guardians were led in the game by timely hitting from centerfielder Daniel Schneemann and huge home runs from shortstop Gabriel Arias, and slugger Jose Ramirez.<\/p>\n

Ramirez stroked an insurance providing two-run homer in the 7th inning, to give Cleveland and Williams a 4-0 lead.<\/p>\n

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As usual, the Dodgers didn\u2019t go quietly in the game, as the Guardians relievers had to navigate traffic on the bases and a Freddie Freeman home run to uphold the Guardians lead, and ultimately the victory.<\/p>\n

The Guardians split their season opening series with the Mariners, and then took two out of the three games against the Dodgers, winning the series.<\/p>\n

\"Cleveland<\/p>\n

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – MARCH 28: Gavin Williams #32 of the Cleveland Guardians warms up before the game against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park on March 28, 2026 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Olivia Vanni\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Getty ImagesWhat They\u2019re Saying:<\/p>\n

After his first start of the season, as foxsports.com reported, Gavin Williams told MLB.com<\/a> he was \u201cout of synch with his front foot too quick to the ground before his upper body was ready deliver the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams certainly corrected those flaws in his second start of the year.<\/p>\n

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Following the game, Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt told WTAM, \u201cGavin made some adjustments from start to start. Our coaches are coaching well, and it was a real good road trip for us.”<\/p>\n

Williams dominated from the first pitch, until he left after seven innings.<\/p>\n

The Cleveland bullpen picked Williams up, closing out the game against some of Major League Baseball\u2019s finest hitters.<\/p>\n

In his victory against the Dodgers, Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman went hitless against Williams.<\/p>\n

Those are four of the finest hitters in the game. Each has a history of All Star appearances to their credit.<\/p>\n

\"Cleveland<\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 31: Andy Pages #44 of the Los Angeles Dodgers walks off the field during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians at Dodger Stadium on March 31, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Ryan Sun\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

In fact, only Andy Pages with three hits, and Teoscar Hernandez with one hit were the only Dodgers players to hit safely in the game. Until Freeman hit his 9th inning homer.<\/p>\n

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Cade Smith got the save in the game.<\/p>\n

45,556 Dodgers fans didn\u2019t get a victory for their team on April, 1, but if they are true baseball fans, they had to admire the great pitching effort of Gavin Williams.<\/p>\n

Now, the Guardians will finally get some home cooking back in Cleveland, after a long spring training in Arizona, and seven tough road games to start the season.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on Forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanks to brilliant pitching by Gavin Williams, the Cleveland Guardians will face their Friday, April 3 home opener…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[1384,146,5,539,2178,24,135,51,2565,2076,2196,815,1383,2078,1628,538,29,774,57,4,1526,65,468,860,1528,3627,313],"class_list":{"0":"post-658574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-andy-pages","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-cade-smith","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-chicago-cubs","14":"tag-cleveland","15":"tag-cleveland-guardians","16":"tag-clevelandguardians","17":"tag-daniel-schneemann","18":"tag-dodger-stadium","19":"tag-freddie-freeman","20":"tag-gabriel-arias","21":"tag-gavin-williams","22":"tag-getty-images","23":"tag-guardians","24":"tag-kyle-tucker","25":"tag-los-angeles","26":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","27":"tag-mlb","28":"tag-mookie-betts","29":"tag-seattle-mariners","30":"tag-shohei-ohtani","31":"tag-stephen-vogt","32":"tag-teoscar-hernandez","33":"tag-the-guardians","34":"tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116334775701947818","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658574","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=658574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}