Guardians’ next wave of starting pitchers staying in big leagues; change is coming

By

Paul Hoynes, cleveland.com

BOSTON -- The Guardians’ starting rotation could be undergoing changes. The next wave manager Terry Francona talked about upon the promotion of left-hander Logan Allen, is here for the foreseeable future.

Allen and Tanner Bibee, in other words, will not be headed back to Class AAA Columbus anytime soon.

The left-handed Allen made his second big-league start Sunday against Boston and pitched well despite a 7-1 loss. Bibee will trade pitches with Gerrit Cole on Tuesday night when he faces the Yankees in the Bronx.

The Guardians, at the moment, are up to their neck in starting pitchers. No one is complaining, but who fits where is a question.

They’re currently carrying seven on the 13-man staff in Shane Bieber, Cal Quantrill, Zach Plesac, Peyton Battenfield, Allen, Bibee and Xzavion Curry. Battenfield just moved to the bullpen, where Curry has been pitching well in a long relief role since the start of the season.

They also have established starters Triston McKenzie and Aaron Civale on the injured list. Former No. 1 pick Gavin Williams, meanwhile, just made his Triple-A debut for the Clippers.

Change is coming, and we should have a good idea about who ends up where by the end of the week.

Here’s what we know so far:

The Guardians aren’t going to stay with six starters. Battenfield could be sent down, with left-hander Sam Hentges expected to finish his rehab assignment and rejoin the bullpen later this week.
Hentges was scheduled to join the Guardians in New York, but Columbus was rained out Sunday and he still has to make one more rehab appearance with them.
Allen and Bibee aren’t going anywhere.
A move could be made with Zach Plesac, who lost 13 games last year and has continued to struggle this season. Plesac has options, or he could be moved to the bullpen.
Plesac, a member of the rotation since his big-league debut in 2019, allowed five runs on eight hits in 3 1/3 innings in Saturday’s 8-7 loss to Boston.
The Guardians could move Curry into the rotation, giving them three rookie starters. The problem is Francona really likes Curry in his current role.

Allen struck out eight and allowed two runs in five innings on a cold and wet Sunday. He threw 104 pitches, 69 (66%) for strikes.

Bibee made his big-league debut on Wednesday against the Rockies. He struck out eight and allowed one run on six hits in 5 2/3 innings.

Catcher Cam Gallagher caught Allen on Sunday, and he was behind the plate for Bibee’s debut.

“They don’t get rattled,” said Gallagher, when asked to compare the two. “I didn’t sense that at all.

“Logan gave up those two hits to start the fifth inning to put runners on second and third. I looked out to see how he was handling it. If he was a little upset, I was going to go out and talk to him.

“But he looked like he was in the zone and wanted to keep going. I think they both have their head on straight and are here to compete.”

Guardians remain an umimpressive No. 17 on MLB Power Rankings, which looks about right.
Last year's fellow young breakout team, the Orioles, are currently 19-9 and are rated No. 5. A good argument for developing hitters as well as pitchers

Twins, Guardians and … White Sox? Inside the thrilling battle for AL Central supremacy MINNEAPOLIS, MN - APRIL 12: Byron Buxton #25 of the Minnesota Twins collides with Lenyn Sosa #50 of the Chicago White Sox in the seventh inning of the game at Target Field on April 12, 2023 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Twins defeated the White Sox 3-1. (Photo by David Berding/Getty Images)
By Zack Meisel, James Fegan, and Dan Hayes


With the division-leading Twins headed to Chicago and Cleveland this week to battle a pair of AL Central foes, we decided to check in with Zack Meisel (Guardians beat writer), James Fegan (White Sox beat writer) and Dan Hayes (Twins beat writer) to size up the state of the division.

Meisel: The AL Central is more AL Centraly (Centralic?) than ever. It’s May 1 and the division race has essentially been whittled down to two teams. I’m not sure anyone expected the Royals and Tigers to hang around, but, goodness, the White Sox stats page looks like a crime scene.

Dan Hayes (our unsure-handed Twins writer), this roundtable is typically reserved for those who cover AL Central contenders. For several years in this space, you and I have bantered back and forth with James Fegan, longtime White Sox watcher/survivor. But is it time, after Chicago’s 8-21 start, to boot James from the group? Is there any way the White Sox rebound?

Fegan: I mean, probably not?

Meisel: It’s not your turn. You’re on trial.

Fegan: On the South Side, it’s always time to opine.

If you took Generic Good Team and saddled them with a 20-loss month where they fell 12 games under .500, they would likely spend multiple months — if not the whole year — trying to dig themselves out.

Beyond name recognition on their roster, nothing about the White Sox’s April performance suggests they are anything but one of the worst teams in the AL. They have seen their share of freak occurrences, like Luis Robert Jr. and Eloy Jiménez having the worst offensive months of their career at the same time, or Matt Wallner sliding into Tim Anderson’s knee amid a botched rundown. And the team’s record without Anderson answers the question: “How would the Bad News Bears fare if Kelly Leak sprained his knee and missed three weeks?”

But erratic offensive results due to poor plate approach, Yoán Moncada being sidelined with a “protruding disc” in his back, and just struggling to stay healthy in general, do not read as temporary aberrations. I didn’t even talk about how many people the pitching staff has walked.

Hayes: How clever of you, James, to jump in before I could address Zack’s question about you being relegated. First of all, any time we can kick James out of anything, I’m here for it. By the way, this is the appropriate time to dig up that picture of you flipping off the camera and share it with me and Zack. We probably deserve it.

Anyway, following this egregious affront, I do think we should seriously consider revoking James’ membership. I’m all for piling on. Do you think our Tigers writer Cody Stavenhagen is available on such short notice?

Fegan: I’m sorry you can’t handle how cool and edgy I was at age 19.

Meisel: Anyway … I just can’t believe that four weeks into the season, we’re struggling to locate a third team that might vie for the top spot in the league’s sorriest division. And while I can’t speak for the Twins, the Guardians sure don’t seem like an AL titan to this point.

Hayes: They haven’t been, and frankly, the Guardians’ struggles have largely gone unnoticed because of how poorly the White Sox, Tigers and Royals are playing. Obviously, Cleveland is still playing around .500 ball, and that’s an easy position from which to recover. But just basing my observations off your social media, I haven’t seen a lot of glowing tweets. What do you think are the reasons for the Guardians’ slowish start?

Meisel: I write articles, too, you know. Anyway, prior to this weekend’s series at Fenway Park, the Guardians’ offense had been ice cold. They still don’t hit for any power, so when they have a period in which they can’t string together singles and run like caffeinated preschoolers, they don’t score, even during a recent stretch of winnable games against the Tigers, Marlins and Rockies.

And those vaunted Cleveland rotations you’ve grown accustomed to watching? This isn’t that. At least, not yet. It might be in a few months, thanks to rookies Tanner Bibee, Logan Allen and, eventually, maybe, Gavin Williams — a trio of top-100 prospects who wield devastating stuff. But aside from Shane Bieber, the rotation has been a big bowl of meh. Triston McKenzie’s return in a month should help.

Are the Twins noticeably more imposing than they were at this time last year?

Hayes: The Twins starting rotation has looked very good. The next few weeks will be interesting to see how they respond with Kenta Maeda, who has been bad, on the injured list, and Tyler Mahle dealing with an elbow issue.

But unlike past years, the starters have looked good. Pablo López is electric with improved fastball velocity and a nasty sweeper. Joe Ryan improved his secondary pitches and looks like a very good pitcher — and he’s done it against good teams, unlike last season — and Sonny Gray has been electric. Assuming Bailey Ober can step in for Maeda, the rotation is a strength compared with the disasters the Twins have fielded the previous two years. The back of the bullpen is much more settled this year and the offense just started to hit.

Health will always be the key with this roster and they’ve been able to weather a number of early injuries well. So yes, I think they are more imposing, but after last season’s collapse you understand how easily it can fall apart, and nobody knows how they’d handle a key injury to Byron Buxton or Carlos Correa.

Still, there are a lot of young players performing and confident, and they have depth. That’s a good combination after a month in which the Twins have played the Astros, Yankees, Red Sox and White Sox.

So is this the part where we allow James back in to defend himself? Do we even let him talk? Or maybe we invite in that fan who had that eloquent seven-minute rant the other day?

Meisel: Yeah, I’m curious how this went so south so quickly for Chicago. I was told their shortcomings were all Tony La Russa’s fault. What gives?

Fegan: I feel like I’m going to be using this line a lot, but we’re not searching for The One Guy Who Did This to the White Sox. This is a systemic failure. They have hunted raw bat speed and raw power for years, and have assembled a whole roster full of swing-first guys with approach issues, positionless bats, raw athletes who can’t help offensively, and power arms with lacking command, unreliable secondaries and dodgy health history. The bulk of the players they were praised for locking up to long-term extensions have become unreliable performers.

It definitely would reflect a lot better upon manager Pedro Grifol and his new coaching staff if they could point to some progress in this team’s tendencies to swing at and make weak contact upon everything, throw to the wrong base, walk the whole ballpark, etc. But while I don’t get the impression that Pedro listens to a lot of 2Pac, he was given this world, he didn’t make it.

While Grifol, La Russa, and Rick Renteria aren’t a comprehensive sample of all managers, we certainly are starting to accumulate enough ammunition to start wondering if anyone could turn this current stockpile of raw tools into a complete team. So far, Renteria seems to have come the closest. Remember when this team led the AL in homers in 2020? I don’t. I had to look it up.

Meisel’s mixed write-up of the Guardians and the ever-present gaps in Hayes’ logic have me convinced this division would be winnable if it were at all possible the Sox could reach their ceiling. Watching the first month of White Sox baseball has me convinced I’m chasing a ghost.

Meisel: I do wonder what the ultimate win total will be for the AL Central champion. The division as a whole has been dreadful, with a 55-87 composite record. (The AL East is 90-53.) Will the Twins and/or Guardians at least command a little respect for this otherwise pitiful group?

Hayes: James, I feel for you. Having watched plenty of it, I understand how covering bad baseball can warp your brain.

Yes, the Twins have that potential. Correa isn’t going to hit .209. Joey Gallo looks more like the 2017-21 version than the guy from the past two seasons. The depth is there. The pitching is as good as it’s been. The defense is sound and they’ve actually been a fun team to watch so far.

Zack, do you think Cleveland can be that team?

Meisel: I’m not sure. The Guardians’ goal isn’t simply to be the class of the league’s weakest division. They did that last year. It’s to reach the end of September feeling like they’re equipped to make a run. I don’t really see the ingredients for that yet.

It feels like every little mistake they make costs them. Amed Rosario pulls the first baseman off the bag on what should be a routine groundout, and the runner winds up scoring a few minutes later. Mike Zunino fails to block a breaking ball in the dirt with a runner on third. Oscar Gonzalez lines into a double play after finally exhibiting some patience at the plate. There’s been a lot of unfortunate sequencing, a lot of nights when the pitching works but the hitting doesn’t, or vice versa. The Guardians went 28-17 in one-run games last season. They’re 6-8 in such affairs this year.

Maybe that just adds up to an average team. Maybe it’ll all come together in time. They need to make some changes. They’ve started to do that in the rotation. So, ask me again in a month, after the Guardians have faced the Yankees, Twins, White Sox, Mets, Angels and Orioles and have sorted out more of what’s been a mess to this point.

Hayes: Where do we think James will be in a month and will we be restricted by visitor’s hours?

Fegan: There are visiting hours in Hell?

Guardians Prospective
@CleGuardPro
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15m
Cleveland Guardians are promoting David Fry from Triple-A Columbus for their series against the Yankees. Fry will have to be added to the 40-man roster.

Another Catcher????

Can he stop a ball in the dirt?

One more for today affecting 26 and 40-player rosters

+Selected the contract of C/INF David Fry (#12) from AAA Columbus.
+Designated C Meibrys Viloria for a assignment.

Fry is making his debut at the ML level

I don't believe Fry has spent 1 inning behind the plate this year. He has had played some first base, a lot of third, some outfield, DH; he is a right handed hitter. He's unlikely a big difference. But it's not like they're removing anyone from the roster who has contributed anything at all.

Excepting Meisel comments from above:

The Guardians’ goal isn’t simply to be the class of the league’s weakest division. They did that last year. It’s to reach the end of September feeling like they’re equipped to make a run. I don’t really see the ingredients for that yet.
The Guardians went 28-17 in one-run games last season. They’re 6-8 in such affairs this year.

Maybe that just adds up to an average team. Maybe it’ll all come together in time. They need to make some changes. They’ve started to do that in the rotation. So, ask me again in a month, after the Guardians have faced the Yankees, Twins, White Sox, Mets, Angels and Orioles and have sorted out more of what’s been a mess to this point.

Does he hit more than singles?

For Josh Naylor and Guardians, a much-needed ninth-inning hit to flush subpar start

May 1, 2023; Bronx, New York, USA; Cleveland Guardians first baseman Josh Naylor (22) hits a two run single in the ninth inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports
By Zack Meisel
May 1, 2023
11

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NEW YORK — The start of any season can be cruel and unforgiving, the walk to the batter’s box lonely and quiet. A track record is great, but the ghastly numbers staring back at you from every ballpark display in any direction you look, those are all anyone cares about in the moment. There’s nowhere to hide.

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For Josh Naylor, a wretched stretch in April started with an 0-for-4 that evolved into 0-for-9 and 0-for-12 and, suddenly, like a snowball speeding down the side of a mountain, ballooned into 1-for-38. He said the spiral felt more like 2-for-100.

And then, as it always seems to unfold, Naylor poked a couple of unassuming singles through the defense about a week ago (and off a left-hander, no less). Never mind the missiles he had launched directly into the webbing of fielders’ gloves for weeks.

The thing about a slump at the start of any season, though, is that it doesn’t have to last forever. Naylor’s metrics would suggest he’s been more unfortunate than incapable. And so the message to him has been to stay the course. Maybe dial it back a bit in pivotal run-scoring situations but focus on the process, because even though the early returns might not be favorable, he’s hitting the ball hard, and he’ll ultimately be rewarded for doing so.

He certainly was rewarded Monday night, when his sharp single off Yankees closer Clay Holmes, a 105.7 mph laser through the right side of the infield, erased New York’s lead and made a footnote out of eight innings of putrid offense from the Guardians.


“If you have a bad start,” Naylor said, “you just keep going.”

That applies to the Guardians as a whole, too. Several players mentioned on Monday the team’s desire to flush a lousy April, believing that metaphorically flipping a calendar can cure what ails them. The Guardians’ ineffectiveness against Yankees starter Domingo Germán, and their efficiency at being so ineffective, had the teams breezing through eight innings and threatening to complete the series opener in about an hour and 45 minutes.

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But a Steven Kwan single followed by Amed Rosario’s reaching on an error and a José Ramírez single set the stage for Naylor to deliver a hit he and everyone in the visitors dugout sorely needed. After all, Naylor’s surface-level numbers don’t reflect kindly on his first month. He owns a .213/.270/.337 slash line and a wRC+ of 63, meaning he’s been 37 percent less productive than a league-average hitter.

Ah, but a peek under the hood suggests he’s due for a rebound. Statcast’s expected numbers use quality of contact to determine expected statistics. The better the contact, the better the chance a hitter inflicts damage.

Naylor’s expected batting average is .290. His actual batting average is .213.

No, Naylor won’t achieve a contract bonus if he wins the expected batting crown. The Guardians won’t raise a banner if they win the expected World Series. (Not sure if their expected drought is also sitting at three-quarters of a century.)

These numbers can, however, offer us context about whether a hitter is running into some rotten luck or if there’s simply no hope.

Naylor’s expected slugging percentage is .502. His actual slugging percentage is .337. That difference of minus-.165 is the second-largest gap in the majors, behind only Atlanta’s Marcell Ozuna.

“He’s actually having a better year (than 2022) with impact and all of those things,” said hitting coach Chris Valaika, who told Naylor to “try to focus on the process.”

Josh Naylor's metrics, 2022 vs. 2023
Exit velocity
58th
67th
Hard-hit rate
65th
74th
Strikeout rate
82nd
80th
Walk rate
43rd
46th
Whiff rate
80th
88th
In other words, Naylor is making a lot of contact, isn’t striking out much, is hitting the ball with some authority and is doing so more often than he did last year. That should be a formula for success, even if it hasn’t translated yet.

Now, lefties remain a problem for him, as he’s 3-for-23 with three singles against southpaws this year and owns a .543 OPS against them in his career. The Guardians need him to feast on righties, to serve as an imposing, left-handed power threat between a pair of switch hitters, Ramírez and Josh Bell, in a lineup that has profoundly underperformed through the first month.

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Naylor’s expected batting average ranks in the 87th percentile in the league. His expected slugging percentage ranks in the 81st percentile. Those metrics would suggest he has no business boasting a .607 OPS.

“I think everything will work itself out in the end,” he said.

The recipe for that? Perhaps a dash of patience. Naylor’s already-low chase rate has dipped to the 18th percentile after he ranked in the 26th percentile last year. It’s no surprise that a hitter mired in a slump would desperately attempt to clobber everything thrown in his direction, especially with runners aboard.

“He doesn’t need to do more,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said. “He just needs to be the hitter he is. That’s good enough.”


The Guardians enjoyed the comeback after being held to one hit in the first eight innings. (Wendell Cruz / USA Today)
So, naturally, he approached the plate in the ninth inning Monday with the bases loaded and a chance to erase 100 minutes of Guardians misery.

“I tried to see the first pitch. I faced him in the past,” Naylor said. “He has this really, really good sinker, and I had to wait until it started at me almost — then it would be a strike. If it started in the middle, then it would be a ball because it runs so much. I just tried to put the ball in play with hard contact, and I felt like something good would happen.”

He watched a couple of 96 mph sinkers sail past. Then he socked a third, clocked at 97.3 mph, into right field to tie the score. The process worked. And the results — in a results-driven business — finally reflected as much.

“I think everything will work itself out in the end,” Naylor said.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Guardians traded Konnor Pilkington to the Diamondbacks on Monday in exchange for cash considerations after designating the lefty for assignment last week. Pilkington was 1-2 with a 3.75 ERA in 16 appearances across two seasons since making his major league debut with Cleveland last year.

Arizona added Pilkington to its 40-man roster and immediately optioned him to Triple-A Reno. A third-round draft pick of the White Sox in 2018, Cleveland acquired the Mississippi State product in a 2021 trade deadline deal for Cesar Hernandez.


Pilkington, 25, got off to a rough start at Triple-A Columbus this season, going 0-2 with an 8.36 ERA and 14 strikeouts in 14 innings across four starts for the Clippers. He was recalled to the major league roster April. 25 and pitched two scoreless innings against Colorado before being released the following day.

The wait to watch Tanner Bibee was worth it. He’s showing why Guardians believe in him NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 02: Tanner Bibee #61 of the Cleveland Guardians reacts with teammates as he leaves the game during the sixth inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on May 02, 2023 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
By Zack Meisel


NEW YORK — Carl Willis tried to sneak a peek at Tanner Bibee during spring training.

The Guardians had an off-day and Aaron Civale was throwing in a minor-league game. Civale on Field 1, Bibee on Field 2. Willis, the team’s pitching coach, kept attempting to hustle over to catch Bibee on the mound, but the innings wouldn’t align in his favor. Civale and Bibee were always pitching at the same time, and Willis’ primary obligation was to monitor Civale’s outing. He ended up seeing Bibee toss three pitches.

Willis tried to watch Bibee’s debut last week. Once again, he was limited to three pitches. He experienced dizziness after returning to the dugout following Bibee’s warmup routine in the bullpen. He caught three pitches on TV from a hospital bed before doctors wheeled him to the ER, where his furious clicks of the remote failed to find Bally Sports Great Lakes.

On Tuesday night, finally, Willis had a front-row seat for each of Bibee’s 92 pitches — every 97 mph fastball, every looping slider and even the handful of changeups, a pitch the right-hander didn’t start harnessing until he joined the Guardians organization what seems like five minutes ago. Willis was the one to greet Bibee at the dugout steps, to pat him on the shoulder after a valiant effort at Yankee Stadium opposite New York ace Gerrit Cole.

Five years ago, Cleveland’s brass made a conscious effort to keep a rising prospect named Shane Bieber out of view from Willis and manager Terry Francona during spring training. The front office didn’t want the coaches to salivate over Bieber’s elite command. It didn’t matter. By the end of May that season, Bieber was in the big leagues. A year later, he was anchoring Cleveland’s rotation.

If the Guardians are going to build off their breakout 2022 campaign, they’re going to need Bibee and Logan Allen, a couple of poised rookies, to help them stitch together their tattered rotation.

“We believe in these guys,” Willis said. “You don’t want to put too high of expectations on someone, but there are expectations on them because we feel they’re that good.”
“I’m not perfect right now. I’m not even close,” Tanner Bibee said. “There will probably be growing pains along the way.” (Wendell Cruz / USA Today)

As he stood on the dirt outside the visitors dugout about an hour before first pitch Monday, Bibee peered up at the sky. Raindrops started to fall. Ah, well. Mother Nature certainly can’t dampen his spirits. He can barely remember where he was a week ago. Was it Worcester, Mass., he wonders? Columbus? Yeah, that’s right. He was awaiting his next Triple-A start in Columbus.

It’s been a whirlwind.

“Fenway Park last weekend. Yankee Stadium this week,” he said, unable to stop the smile spreading across his face. “It’s nuts. I got called up, pitched, off day, boom, Boston, boom, now New York. Like, holy cow.”

Really, he’s been cruising along baseball’s Autobahn for a few years. In 2020, he was a command artist at Cal State Fullerton, topping out in the upper 80s. He visited a pitching lab, boosted his velocity to the low 90s and worked his way into a fifth-round draft pick. He met with Cleveland’s pitching gurus and started sitting in the mid-90s, a result that he said arrived more quickly than he would have imagined, and stemmed from cleaning up his mechanics.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” he said. “The first time you hit a higher number, you’re like, ‘Oh, gosh.’”

Bibee added a changeup to his arsenal after the Guardians drafted him. He sprinkles that into his mix against lefties, as it dives away from them. His fastball and slider are the two offerings he relies on most. He lacked his typical fastball command in his debut against the Rockies, an unsurprising side effect of first-day jitters, especially for a rookie who learned only 15 hours before game time that he’d be the one taking the mound.

First start: 40 sliders, 36 fastballs, eight changeups, seven curveballs

Second start: 48 fastballs, 31 sliders, eight curveballs, five changeups

The pitch distribution in his second start is closer to what he prefers.

So what makes his fastball and slider so effective? The way he tunnels the two pitches, releasing each from the same slot, makes it difficult for the hitter to determine which pitch is spiraling in his direction.

“The goal for the pitcher is to make sure they don’t know what pitch it is until it’s in the catcher’s glove or until it’s about 57 feet away,” Bibee said.

The boosted fastball velocity makes both pitches more effective, since it gives the hitter less time to make a decision.

“They have to respect how fast it gets there,” he said.

The Guardians will have to be conservative with how much they lean on Bibee and Allen. Oddly enough, both hurlers logged exactly 132 2/3 innings last year in the minors. So don’t expect either to flirt with the 200-inning mark this year.

So far, through four total starts, they certainly look like they belong. They’ve combined for a 2.45 ERA, with three walks and 29 strikeouts in 22 innings. The strikeouts are a welcomed jolt for a starting staff that ranks last in the majors in strikeout rate.

“I’m not perfect right now. I’m not even close,” Bibee said. “There will probably be growing pains along the way. Everyone here is still growing, no matter how good they are. If someone was perfect, I don’t think they would be here right now. They would probably get bored and go take up something else.”

There are five months remaining in the regular season, but count catcher Mike Zunino among those impressed. He said Bibee and Allen “can help us win.” Both have put the Guardians in position to do that, though Cleveland’s scuffling offense and a home run-prone James Karinchak prevented that from happening Tuesday.

Triston McKenzie can’t return from the injured list until at least Memorial Day. Civale’s return date is likely to be later than that. Zach Plesac’s days in the rotation could be numbered. Francona said the club will reveal its fifth starter later this week. Plesac and Peyton Battenfield threw side sessions Tuesday afternoon. Francona said they like Xzavion Curry, at least for now, in a relief role.

So, there will be more opportunities for Allen and Bibee to prove themselves in the big leagues. And more chances for Willis to watch Bibee throw more than three pitches.

“There’s a lot to like with this kid,” Francona said. “We’re going to enjoy watching to see how good he can get.”

The kids look good.

Teams don't have much video yet on them at the Major League level but will be breaking down their future starts. The game is all about adjustments. Teams will adjust to them and then they must re-adjust.

Now, let's give them some run support.

Yep, that's baseball. Recall Logan Allen I looked good briefly.
Having a bevy of good pitches and composure help.
Compusure seems to be an issue with one of our relievers

Steven Kwan had a great April last year, they adjusted to him in May, he adjusted to them in June

In dsappointing but totally expected news:

Top Guardians prospect Espino (shoulder surgery) out 12-14 months

NEW YORK -- Once again, the Guardians have received less-than-ideal news about their top prospect. On Tuesday, right-hander Daniel Espino underwent right shoulder surgery (anterior capsule repair) in Los Angeles. He's expected to return to game activity in 12 to 14 months. It’s been over a year since Espino first
etc etc

As he increased the intensity and distance in his catch routines, Espino's shoulder flared up again. That's when the organization determined it was best for Espino to visit a doctor instead of just giving him some more down time.

On Monday, Espino visited with Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who determined it was best for the right-hander to undergo surgery. And now, after having already missed the last year, he'll be out of game activity for at least another 12 months.