Over the past two seasons, the Cleveland Guardians won plenty of games on the back of bunt singles, base-running madness and mistakes from their opponent. It was so prevalent that the Guardians created the nickname of \u2018Guards Ball\u2019 to describe it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It may have taken Chase DeLauter all of eight games to change what \u2018Guards Ball\u2019 looks like.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While there will probably still be plenty of Guardians games this year that will be defined by defensive misplays and weird things that only seem to happen at Progressive Field, it looks like there\u2019s also going to be more power than we\u2019re used to.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DeLauter showed exactly what that looks like on Friday when he slugged a mammoth, two-run home run in the seventh inning of the Guardians\u2019 home opener that extended Cleveland\u2019s lead to 4-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chase DeLauter keeps crushing \ud83d\ude24<\/p>\n
He LAUNCHES his 5th homer of the season! pic.twitter.com\/wsi0WCJRu9<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 MLB (@MLB) April 3, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n In previous years, it always seemed like that at-bat ended with a Guardians scampering around the basepaths while the defenders looked like they were doing a rendition of Yakety Sax.\u00a0<\/p>\n But DeLauter took away all that intrigue with a screamer that landed in the right field bleachers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chase DeLauter is providing the Guardians with power they haven\u2019t had in years\u00a0<\/p>\n With the home run, DeLauter now has slugged five home runs through his first seven games, making him the fourth player in MLB history to achieve that feat.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n After giving Guardians fans a bit of a teaser of what he can do in his brief cameo last season, DeLauter became one of the biggest stories in baseball when he slugged four homers across the Guardians\u2019 season-opening road trip.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n And he wasted no time making his mark in his first (regular season) appearance at Progressive Field, as he tied the game with an RBI single in the fifth inning before launching his homer in the seventh.\u00a0<\/p>\n The ball left his bat at 109 miles per hour and traveled 402 feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n After the game, DeLauter said he \u201cwasn\u2019t surprised\u201d by his start.<\/a> And he really shouldn\u2019t be considering he obviously knows how much power he has.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it doesn\u2019t take away from the fact that he\u2019s had to miss so much time<\/a> over the past three seasons due to injury. Had he not gotten hurt, his big league debut likely would have come at some point last summer, not when the lights were at their brightest in the postseason.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n But he\u2019s making up for lost time, as he\u2019s now tied with The Athletics\u2019 Shea Langeliers for the most home runs in baseball while also leading the American League with a .923 slugging percentage.\u00a0<\/p>\n The past half-decade of Guardians\u2019 baseball has been defined by a stunning lack of production from the outfield. Now that\u2019s a thing of the past. \u2018Guards Ball\u2019 could be heading in that direction too.\u00a0<\/p>\n