News and Notes: Guardians Shut Out the Red Sox

News and Notes for Tuesday, April 16th, 2024

In one of their most impressive wins of the season, the Guardians responded to a thrilling and emotional win over the Yankees by surgically taking care of business against the Boston Red Sox in a morning game the next day.

Neither team’s offense was awake for a while as Kutter Crawford and Xzavion Curry had their way through 5 and 2/3rds and 5 innings, respectively. Curry hit his innings limit and had to be removed, but Tim Herrin was up to the task pitching two scoreless innings of his own.

In the meantime, the Guardians got to the Red Sox bullpen with their second straight game of a pinch-hit go-ahead home run, this time from Will Brennan:

Gabriel Arias was the other star for the hitters in the game, going 3 for 4 with a triple while playing third base for the DHing Jose Ramirez. Brayan Rocchio got a hit and a walk at shortstop. It will be interesting to see how manager Stephen Vogt handles Arias’s playing time now that he has officially gotten hot of late.

The good Nick Sandlin and the good Eli Morgan showed up and completed the shutout of the Red Sox in what felt very tidy and satisfying to this fan listening to it while doing his day job.

As I went back and watched later, I was impressed with how Xzavion Curry was hitting his location and there seemed to be a little more bite on his offspeed than I have seen in previous starts. It would be a welcome sight to see Curry take a leap this season into becoming a reliable starter every fifth day. He did give up some hard contact, but also struck out three and gave his team everything they could have asked for. I feel like that will, at whatever point it happens, be how people rememeber Xzavion Curry when he retires - “He always gave his team his best to be what they needed wherever they needed him.” I love that guy.

Today, things are back to a more normal time with the Guardians and Red Sox facing off at 7:10PM EST. Hopefully, Tanner Bibee will be back to more of what he normally was in 2023.

Around MLB:

Mike Trout is still good.

Michael Lorenzen blanked the Tigers for his new team, the Rangers.

The Twins are having a rough time.

The Royals beat the hapless White Sox again, leaving them a half-game back of Cleveland.