The baseball season is way too early to make any legitimate comments about the Cleveland Guardians’ start. First, seven games is just 4.3% of the season schedule.
Second, Steven Vogt’s squad spent the first four games playing the Oakland A’s, who may just be the worst team in the sport this season. That doesn’t mean we aren’t happy they took three out of four in Oakland. As we always ask people who pooh-pooh beating poor opponents, would you rather they lost?
Certainly, the series in Seattle and Minnesota will be more of a challenge for the Guardians, but as we said earlier, it is much too soon to make any blanket statements about the 2024 team.
It is difficult to judge the performance of the hitters against the A’s pitching staff, but that doesn’t mean beating Luis Castillo on Tuesday night in Seattle wasn’t impressive. Two of the things we felt would improve the offense, upgrading at catcher and centerfield have showed a bit.
Myles Straw hit just a single home run a year ago and knocked in just 29 runs for the season. Tyler Freeman, getting the bulk of the playing time out there so far, has already matched the dinger total of Straw, and he’s knocked in four runs already.
And Bo Naylor had the big blow against Castillo, a two-run shot, and he’s already drawn three walks in the four games he has played.
One thing that has stuck out was the performance of the starting rotation the first time through. Shane Bieber has been phenomenal, looking every bit like the two-time all-star he is after two appearances, but the rest of the starters have struggled in one area.
None of the other starters has been terrible, but they have had a problem giving Vogt length. It’s not a big deal early in the season, but if it continues, the bullpen will have to carry a heavy burden.
Logan Allen and Carlos Carrasco fought through five innings, Tanner Bibee went just four, and Triston McKenzie lasted just 3.1. The latter two really struggled finding the strike zone consistently, so let’s see how they pitch in their next outings vs. Minnesota this weekend.
It was encouraging to see Allen go 6-2/3 innings yesterday.
As an organization, the Guardians are centered around the starting rotation, and if they can’t take the load off the bullpen, that could be an issue.
On the other hand, the relief corps has been ravaged by injuries and illness, yet they performed admirably this far. Rookie Cade Smith was particularly impressive, fanning nine in 4.1 innings, and Hunter Gaddis might prove to be a weapon out of the ‘pen, with three scoreless outings.
We are sure it would ease Vogt’s mind if he could get six innings out of the rest of the rotation the next time through.
Back to the offense, the key is watching how the hitter perform against good pitching, which the Mariners and Twins have. Putting up competitive at bats is a good thing and something to watch against Pablo Lopez and Joe Ryan.
The offense is the part of the team that was the biggest question mark coming into the season. We will continue to monitor if there is progress in scoring runs.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 