Gotta love it - a home run on the first pitch and then nine scoreless innings.
McKenzie had no command of any of his breaking pitches but bobbed and weaved his way to five scoreless after the first-pitch home run. The bullpen was magnificant again. Kudos to Hunter Gaddis, who blew two 8th inning leads recently. Vogt brought him in again in the 8th and he had to get four outs thanks to Jose's error (which was ruled a hit), but he got them.
Great to see Sam Hentges back and good on Vogt for not letting him go too far in his first appearance of the season. He gave up a walk and a line drive to third so Vogt got him out of there and Sandlin had another great outing.
I saw a report that Manzardo can be under aggressive and he appeared that way tonight. In his first two at-bats he had two strikes on him before he swung the bat. He needs to find out that major league pitchers have much better command than the AAA guys and like to get ahead in the count. In his third at-bat he was swinging from the first pitch, but couldn't hit anything.
The Guardians had three runners thrown out on the bases in the first four innings. That can't happen in a close, low scoring game. Brennan just got caught stealing on a great throw, but Josh and Freeman made boneheaded decisions that got them thrown out.
Tremendous at-bat by Jose on the game-winning home run. With a 2-2 count he fouled off a curve at the knees, fouled off a 96 mph fastball on the outside edge, then homered on a fastball up and in. Just an awesome at-bat.
Florial looked good in the leadoff spot. He doubled on the 7th pitch in the first inning and in the 5th he lined out to right field on the 8th pitch against Flaherty, who was excellent, by the way.
This Tiger lefty Joey Wentz is really impressive. He came in with an 0.79 ERA and 18 K's in 13 innings. He pitched two scoreless tonight, striking out four. He was putting every pitch right on target and getting hitters to chase with two strikes. Last year as a starter he was 3-13 with a 6.90 ERA. He looks like their version of Hunter Gaddis.
The good thing is Wentz threw 34 pitches so he probably won't be available tomorrow.