Gavin Williams was unbelievable today. I could end the recap right here and pretty adequately sum up the events of tonight\u2019s rubber match. He was in full control of the game for basically all seven innings. This performance from Gavin vindicates all of us loyal Gavin Williams believers who truly know that this domination is what he can do every single time he takes the mound. I have no notes for his performance which, if you\u2019ve read any of my articles before, is rare. He had every single pitch working for him, and completely silenced the best lineup in baseball. He kept his fastball in the upper half, and sequenced it beautifully with his cutter & breaking pitches. He was getting his sinker to jump into the outer-third against righties all night. He was getting chase, and generated 16 (SIXTEEN) swings and misses. Truly a spectacular performance from him. This is exactly what I want him to do (within reason) every night. This performance showcases exactly why he can be not just a Cy Young finalist, but a legitimate contender to win it. Just look at this beautiful chart (obtained from the lovely Thomas Nestico, @TJStats on X, as always).<\/p>\n
To the offense! Daniel Schneemann got the fun started with a true do-it-yourself run. He doubled, then stole third and, on a throwing error from Will Smith, waltzed home. Arias followed that up with a missile to center.<\/p>\n
It was more-or-less quiet until the 8th, when our sleeping giant finally woke up.<\/p>\n
(By the way, why on EARTH did Dave Roberts bring in a lefty for Jose? With Manzardo right behind him, why would you pitch to the guy who notoriously nukes lefties. I get it\u2019s Tanner Scott, but why even take the risk?)<\/p>\n
Anywho, Shawn Armstrong got himself into some trouble in the 8th, giving up a single and double to Hernandez and Pages, respectfully. He struck out Alex Freeland for the second out, and was then replaced by Erik Sabrowski to face Shohei Ohtani. Erik Sabrowski, if you weren\u2019t already aware, is an unbelievable talent. On the majority of teams in MLB, he would be their best reliever. He came in and got Ohtani out on three pitches, two of which were out of the zone.<\/p>\n
For reference, Sabrowski has generated whiffs on 46.2% of pitches this year (per @TJStats). FOURTY-SIX. Insanity. He\u2019s a monster.<\/p>\n
Cade Smith came on in the 9th and, well, wasn\u2019t as sterling as is expected of him. Gave up back to back barrels to Freddie Freeman and Will Smith. Freeman\u2019s, unfortunately, left the park. That was the Dodgers\u2019 only run tonight. Cade has been a little iffy to start the year, but hopefully he gets back on track when the team comes back to Cleveland on Friday.<\/p>\n
If you haven\u2019t already (and are able), get tickets to watch the Guardians this homestand. Among the highlights: Opening Day festivities on Friday, Chase DeLauter\u2019s (regular season) Cleveland debut, and last, but not least, Jose has a chance to sit atop the Guardians\u2019 franchise games played leaderboard on Monday if he plays every game. A lot to watch for, so please turn out.<\/p>\n
By the way, 4-3 against two World Series contenders to start the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gavin Williams was unbelievable today. I could end the recap right here and pretty adequately sum up the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,4882,2565,538,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-658871","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-scores-standings","12":"tag-clevelandguardians","13":"tag-guardians","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116335487630732863","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658871","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=658871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}