{"id":661957,"date":"2026-04-04T01:57:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661957\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T01:57:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:57:18","slug":"cleveland-guardians-chase-delauter-continues-hot-start-with-three-hits-two-run-homer-in-home-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661957\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland Guardians\u2019 Chase DeLauter continues hot start with three hits, two-run homer in home opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Chase DeLauter<\/a> has developed a knack for memorable openers.<\/p>\n

DeLauter became the first Cleveland player to make his major league debut in last year\u2019s AL Wild Card series against Detroit.<\/p>\n

On March 26 at Seattle, DeLauter became the seventh player since 1889 to hit two home runs in his first major league regular-season game.<\/p>\n

So, it wasn\u2019t a surprise that DeLauter achieved another milestone on Friday. His two-run homer in the seventh inning of the Guardians\u2019 4-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs<\/a> made him the first Cleveland player since Joe Charboneau in 1980 to homer in both their first regular-season home and away game.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing in here, packed house, first game, beautiful day. It was a good feeling to get that one. That\u2019s as good as you can dream it up\u201d said DeLauter, who went 3 for 4 and drove in three runs.<\/p>\n

DeLauter tied it at 1-1 in the fifth inning with a base hit to left to drive in Daniel Schneemann<\/a>. After Gabriel Arias<\/a>\u2019 homer put Cleveland on top 2-1 in the seventh, DeLauter drove a 96.6 mph fastball by Hunter Harvey<\/a> 402 feet into the right-field stands to extend the Guardians\u2019 lead.<\/p>\n

DeLauter said he immediately knew it was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they come off like that, sometimes you just kind of know,\u201d he said. \u201cI think he went five straight heaters. So, just kind of looking for something up in the zone and got a good pitch a hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only thing that went wrong for DeLauter is that he didn\u2019t time his home run celebration with Steven Kwan<\/a>. DeLauter nearly took out Kwan\u2019s shoulder when they met at home plate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one was my fault. He went in for high five. I went in for a hug and a bad combination there. We\u2019ll get it figured out for sure,\u201d DeLauter said. <\/p>\n

DeLauter\u2019s five home runs are tied with the Athletics<\/a>\u2019 Shea Langeliers<\/a> for the AL lead. According to MLB, He is the fourth player with at least five home runs through his first seven regular-season games. Colorado\u2019s Trevor Story<\/a> had seven in 2016 while Kansas City\u2019s Mark Quinn in 1999 and Cincinnati\u2019s Rece Hinds<\/a> in 2024 both had five.<\/p>\n

He is the first Cleveland player to homer in four of his first seven games. He went deep in the Guardians\u2019 first three games at Seattle, but was 1 for 12 in his last four games coming into the home opener. He missed Wednesday\u2019s series finale against the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> after fouling a ball off his left foot on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike we talked about back in the postseason, this kid\u2019s comfortable. He\u2019s not big eyed and he\u2019s doing a phenomenal job for us. It\u2019s a really fun start for him this year,\u201d manager Stephen Vogt said.<\/p>\n

Friday also marked DeLauter\u2019s second three-hit game after he went 3 for 5 in Cleveland\u2019s 6-4 victory over Seattle on opening day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t necessarily say it\u2019s a surprise. I\u2019m a hitter, so it\u2019s something I look forward to every day,\u201d said DeLauter, who has a .346 batting average with eight RBIs and a 1.293 OPS.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n

Joe Reedy, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Chase DeLauter has developed a knack for memorable openers. DeLauter became the first Cleveland player…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,2565,538,4,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-661957","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-clevelandguardians","12":"tag-guardians","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116343961323231539","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661957","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=661957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}