A few weeks ago, we talked about what figured to be the Cleveland Guardians’ strength coming into the season, the pitching staff, wasn’t pulling its own weight, ranking near the bottom of the American League in ERA.
Things have taken a decided turn for the good for the Cleveland hurlers, as they have seen that ranking moved to 6th in the AL. Surprisingly, they are not doing it with the strikeout, as Guards’ pitchers are just ninth in the Junior Circuit in strikeouts per nine innings.
They are third from the bottom in total whiffs, but that has more to do with Terry Francona’s club playing at least three games less than every other team in the league.
They’ve allowed the third fewest hits per nine, behind only the Yankees and Astros, so there could be concern about how sustainable that is considering the lack of strikeouts.
New York is near the top of the league in whiffs per nine, while Houston averages the same as Cleveland.
In terms of issuing free passes, Carl Willis’ staff is right around league average, so nothing unusual there.
However, in the last 15 games, Cleveland pitchers have allowed more than four runs just twice, most recently, Saturday’s loss to Baltimore, and to take it back further, in the last 23 games, opponents have hit the five-run mark against the Guardians just four times.
The two most disappointing members of the rotation earlier this season were Zach Plesac and Aaron Civale. Plesac has two runs or less in three of his last four starts, and Civale has started only one game since May 13th, and it was a 6-1/3 inning, one run allowed (unearned) effort against Detroit.
Rookie left-hander Konnor Pilkington has subbed in with three starts and hasn’t allowed more than three runs in either of them.
We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the only above league average offense Cleveland faced in the last 15 games is Houston. The Tigers are the league’s worst offense, while the Orioles and Royals both rank in the bottom five in the AL in scoring.
There do seem to be changes afoot in the bullpen. Trevor Stephan has been struggling in his last few outings and Nick Sandlin has had issues throwing strikes all season, walking 15 batters in 15 innings.
So Francona has leaned more on Eli Morgan, a starter last season, and he has been more than impressive. Morgan started the year on the roster to be able to give the team innings because starters were still stretching out from the shortened spring training.
The 26-year-old righty has pitched 25 innings, allowing just 10 hits with only four walks against 32 strikeouts. He’s getting more and more opportunities in the seventh and eighth innings.
The same is true with southpaw Sam Hentges, who has thrown 16-1/3 frames, giving up just eight hits and four walks against 19 strikeouts. He has supplanted Anthony Gose as the late inning lefty.
Enyel De Los Santos has also worked his way into more high leverage situations as well.
If the club can get both Stephan and Sandlin straightened out, this has the makings of a very good bullpen.
If the pitching can keep this going, the Guardians can stay in the post-season race. Hopefully, the last group of games is more indicative of how good the staff can be.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 