News and Notes: Guardians Lose Close Game in Kansas City

News and Notes for Friday, June 28, 2024

The Cleveland Guardians lost a game that was part luck regression, part exhaustion and part "one of those things", falling to the Royals 2-1.

You can't expect your team to be the best in baseball with runners in scoring position all year, so last night was an averaging things out game as Cleveland went 1-6 and left nine men on base.

You can't expect Ben Lively to be prime Corey Kluber. Six innings and two runs surrendered should be more than enough. But it wasn't last night.

The Guardians have a tough task ahead of them in trying to figure out Cole Ragans tomorrow, so it's important that Triston McKenzie have a good start today, but they've been up for tough tasks all year so none of us should be concerned.

The Guardians put Will Brennan on the IL with rib cage discomfort and replaced him with Jose Tena. I suspect this means a lot of Daniel Schneemann, Gabriel Arias, and Johnkensy Noel in right field for a bit. They also replaced Xzavion Curry with Darren McGaughan to get a fresh arm who can give them some scary middle innings if needed.

The Guardians also reportedly will sign Matthew Boyd. Boyd is coming back from Tommy John surgery almost a year ago so one would expect him to need rehab innings in Columbus. With the Cleveland rotation as a whole struggling, it makes sense to get a look at a left-handed starter with a career K/BB/9 of 8.75/2.91. That career 4.64 FIP isn't great but it's also better than Logan Allen's and Triston McKenzie's current FIPs.

Prediction: this will not be the only move Cleveland makes to shore up this roster.

FanGraphs had a couple good Cleveland articles yesterday on Cade Smith and on Carlos Carrasco.

Gavin Williams had a solid rehab start in Columbus:

Another mock draft has Wetherholt going to Cleveland. It's gonna be Bazzana. You heard it here first.