{"id":677629,"date":"2026-04-17T13:04:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677629\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T13:04:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:04:05","slug":"milb-recap-for-the-cleveland-guardians-for-thursday-april-16-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677629\/","title":{"rendered":"MiLB recap for the Cleveland Guardians for Thursday, April 16, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Columbus Clippers 10, Iowa Cubs 11<\/a><\/p>\n

Columbus made a valiant effort to battle back in this one after falling behind 5-0, but the Clippers fell one run shy in extra innings Thursday.<\/p>\n

Travis Bazzana had a spectacular game, going 3-for-6 with two doubles. He\u2019s currently riding a six-game hitting streak with four multi-hit games in his last five. Don\u2019t look now, but he\u2019s really starting to figure it out at Triple-A.<\/p>\n

C.J. Kayfus also had a three-hit game, going 3-for-5 with a double and a walk. Stuart Fairchild went 2-for-5 with a double and a hit by pitch while Kody Huff went 2-for-4 with two doubles.<\/p>\n

Dayan Frias hit his first home run of the season while Milan Tolentino had a two-run double.<\/p>\n

Starting pitcher Ryan Webb was tagged for seven runs (six earned) on nine hits with four walks and just one strikeout in 5.0 innings of work.<\/p>\n

Will Dion was solid in relief, tossing 2.0 scoreless innings.<\/p>\n

Daniel Espino gave up his first run of the season, a solo home run, but he also topped 100 mph with his fastball three times. His slider was over 94 mph and his changeup was over 93. His stuff is getting filthier every time we see him and I\u2019m legitimately getting excited for what he\u2019s going to be able to do as long as he continues to stay healthy.<\/p>\n

Steven Perez pitched a scoreless ninth inning, giving Columbus the chance to send the game to extra innings \u2014 which it did \u2014 but then he was hammered for three runs in the top of the 10th. Columbus managed to score two back, but the rally fell just short.<\/p>\n

Akron RubberDucks 5, Harrisburg Senators 0 (F\/7)<\/a><\/p>\n

RubberDucks improve to 8-4<\/p>\n

Akron continues to get excellent pitching and timely hitting as the RubberDucks own their third straight game. This time, it was starting pitcher Josh Hartle who had himself a game.<\/p>\n

Hartle tossed 5.1 shutout two-hit innings with seven strikeouts and three walks. The performance lowered his season ERA to 2.45.<\/p>\n

Jay Driver completed the final 1.2 innings of the shutout in a rain-shortened game.<\/p>\n

On offense, Angel Genao had a terrific game, going 2-for-3 with a double and a walk. Christian Knapczyk went 1-for-3 with a walk and Jake Fox went 3-for-4.<\/p>\n

Alfonsin Rosario went 1-for-4, but his one hit was a huge one, a three-run home run in the seventh inning to help Akron seal the win. It was his fifth home run of the season.<\/p>\n

Lake County Captains 3, Fort Wayne Tincaps 8<\/a><\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t think it from the final score, but this was by far the best start of pitching prospect Jackson Humphries\u2019 young career.<\/p>\n

An eighth round draft pick out of high school in 2022, Humphries has historically struggled to throw strikes, but that wasn\u2019t the case on Thursday. He pitched five innings, allowing one run on two hits with 10 strikeouts and 0 walks. Still just 21 years old, he\u2019s yet another arm in a loaded Guardians system that\u2019s worth keeping an eye on.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the bullpen didn\u2019t have Humphries\u2019 back on Thursday. Sean Matson gave up two runs in 1.2 innings, Cam Schuelke gave up another run in his 1.1 innings and Logan McGuire was absolutely blistered for four runs in his lone inning of work to remove the Captains from contention.<\/p>\n

Offensively, the Captains scored all of their runs on solo shots. Jaison Chourio had a strong game, going 2-for-4 with a home run and a walk. He\u2019s now up to a rock solid season slashline of .273\/.389\/.523 through 11 games. If he keeps this up, he\u2019ll be right back on track as a top outfield prospect in the loaded Guardians system.<\/p>\n

Esteban Gonzalez also had a great game, going 3-for-4 with a home run. Dean Curley went 1-for-3 with a walk, a hit by pitch and a stolen base and Nolan Schubart went 1-for-4 with a double and a walk. Luke Hill went 1-for-2 with a walk and a hit by pitch.<\/p>\n

Hill City Howlers 14, Wilson Warbirds 1<\/a><\/p>\n

Hill City went absolutely ballistic this game, scoring 14 runs on a whopping 17 hits with seven walks. This is going to be fun to break down, especially the top of the batting order, who all had downright disgusting games.<\/p>\n

Juneiker Caceres had an absolute monster game, going 3-for-5 with a three-run home run and a walk. After a slow start to the season, he now sports a solid .872 OPS.<\/p>\n

Leadoff hitter Dauri Fernandez also was elite, going 4-for-6 with two doubles and a stolen base. Top teenage outfield prospect Robert Arias was moved up to No. 2 in the batting order and he responded by going 3-for-6 with a double, raising his season batting average to .308 in the process.<\/p>\n

Anthony Martinez reached base safely three times, going 1-for-4 with two walks. Yelferth Castillo went 2-for-6 with a double and catcher Ty Howard walked three times and scored a pair of runs.<\/p>\n

Jhorvic Abreus went 2-for-5 with a stolen base and Yaikel Mijares went 2-for-5.<\/p>\n

The incredible offensive eruption buried the lede of some tremendous pitching performances from Hill City.<\/p>\n

Top pitching prospect Joey Oakie had his best start of the 2026 season thus far, throwing 4.0 shutout innings of three-hit ball with seven strikeouts and just one walk.<\/p>\n

Jervis Alfaro followed with 5.0 innings, allowing one run (zero earned) on two hits with five strikeouts and two walks to earn the win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Columbus Clippers 10, Iowa Cubs 11 Columbus made a valiant effort to battle back in this one after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,4927,4926,2565,538,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-677629","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-minor-league-recaps","12":"tag-cleveland-guardians-prospects","13":"tag-clevelandguardians","14":"tag-guardians","15":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116420192730186554","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677629","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=677629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}