News and Notes: Guardians Don't Homer, Don't Win

News and Notes for Sunday, September 1st, 2024

It was a frustrating loss for the Guardians against a bad team as the fell to the Pirates Saturday night 3-0.

Luis Ortiz dominated the Guardians for six innings, allowing only one hit and the Pirates bullpen handled the rest. Things got interesting in the 7th as the Guardians got two on and Lane Thomas hit the ball that went further than any other batted ball in the game (361 feet) and would have been a homer in 11 ballparks. But Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds caught it at the wall and appeared to possibly deke Josh Naylor who was running at second base and got double-off. In hindsight, down 1-0 in the seventh, maybe best to pinch-run for Naylz when his ankle nearly fell off the night before. Also, Odor and/or Naylor, let's not fall for an outfield deke again, K?

Many other frustrating things happened including hard hit balls right at fielders and Brayan Rocchio making terrible throws and Tim Herrin getting hit by a batted ball on his pitching arm. The Pirates deserved to win, but this was a winnable game for Cleveland.

Shoutout to Guardians' starter, Matthew Boyd, who struck out eight, walked none and allowed only four hits and one run in six innings. That'll play, fellas. He's been amazing since returning to action.

September call ups are today and I really hope we could see some shake-ups. But it sounds like it'll be Kyle Manzardo and maybe Gabriel Arias on the hitting side.

As someone who has defended Rocchio and believed he could be an average to good second baseman in the bigs, it's so very clear he's not ready to help the team make a playoff push and run. Time to send him to Columbus to learn to pull fly balls again... and to focus on defense when the game is on the line.

Around MLB:

The Twins and Royals also lost, thankfully. The Twins got DEMOLISHED by the Blue Jays, if that makes anyone feel any better.