News and Notes: So... Bullpen Blow-ups. Remember those? Yeah.

News and Notes for Tuesday, August 6th, 2024

The Cleveland Guardians have had the best bullpen in baseball for the entire season. But, even the best bullpen is going to lose a game now and then and last night was one of those games, as the Guardians dropped one to the Diamondbacks 7-6 in ten innings.

Hard to say if we should blame Cade Smith for giving up three hits and walk and two runs, or Scott Barlow for hanging a curveball for a two-run homer to Joc Pederson, or manager Stephen Vogt for not anticipating that the Barlow-Pederson matchup was coming if he lifted Tim Herrin with Kevin Newman coming to the plate, but, however you want to place blame, the Guardians lost their third in a row as the Twins won their fifth in a row, and so no one’s happy. It’s surprising that the Guardians were even in this game considering that Logan Allen gave up home runs to the first two batters he faced, loaded the bases, and then got hit in the head by a line drive before somehow escaping the first inning and going four subsequent scoreless innings. I don’t know about you, reader, but I was having some very reactionary thoughts seeing Allen give up meatball after meatball in the first, so I’m very glad he showed he can still get good major league hitters out. And, obviously, mostly glad that he is ok, physically, because wow.

Jose Ramirez had a great game going 3 for 4 with a double and two stolen bases, before being, rightly, intentionally walked in the tenth. Unfortunately, Josh Naylor and David Fry could not Make Them Pay a la Tim Misny. It’s probably time to get Kyle Manzardo up here to get regular at-bats vs. LHP for Fry, I think. I believe in Fry but he needs some fixing as his timing seems completely off. Lane Thomas showed why he is probably a short-side platoon player and Tyler Freeman and Brayan Rocchio were, again, feeble presences at the plate. Hey, but Steven Kwan had two hits, Bo Naylor had two hits including a clutch triple against a tough reliever, and Andres Gimenez had three hits including a double and a clutch two-run RBI single. Scoring five runs off of Zac Gallen is a great sign for an offense that just scored five runs off of Corbin Burnes.

When it comes down to it, the team just needs starting pitching that can give them a solid six innings a few times a week. Let’s hope Ben Lively can do that tonight and Alex Cobb can do that in the near future and that Tanner Bibee’s game of catch went well.

Baseball is a cruel game. Let’s not give up on this great team which has righted the ship over and over throughout this amazing season.

Around MLB:

As I mentioned, the Twins shut out the Cubs. They are 3.5 games back.

The Royals lost to the Red Sox.

The White Sox lost their 21st in a row. Truly historic.