News and Notes: Guardians Solve Death Ray Problem For One Night

The Guardians finally solved the Rays, 6-1, on Saturday night, behind a strong performance from rookie Joey Cantillo, home runs from Lane Thomas and Jose Ramirez, and Josh Naylor finally getting hits with runners in scoring position.

Lane Thomas has been huge for a struggling Guardians offense this past week:

And Jose finally got to 35 homers. At 35/39 homers and steals, he'll need a torrid stretch to get 40/40, but 35/35 is still wildly impressive:

Cantillo looked great again, dominating with his Vulcan changeup and holding his velocity late. He went five scoreless striking out six:

Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis, Tim Herrin and Nick Sandlin allowed only one unearned run the rest of the way, giving the Guardians offense time to finally figure out a Rays pitching staff that has given them fits.

Now to see if they can earn a split with Ben Lively and Taj Bradley set to square off Sunday afternoon.

Angel Martinez returned for Tyler Freeman and batted leadoff as Steven Kwan rests an achy back. I'm glad to see them move on from Freeman for the time being and give Angel another shot.

Around MLB:

The Royals won keeping the Guardians magic number at 11.

The Twins lost and are falling apart.

The Astros won their third in a row. Magic number for the two seed is 10.