2024 Season | Series #6 | Guardians @ Red Sox | April 15-18, 2024

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Game 3 preview:

The Guardians look to clinch a series win after taking the first two games by a combined score of 16-7. This one won't be easy as the Guardians start Ben Lively in his first major league appearance of the season. Lively, acquired in the off-season, started two games in Columbus going 8.1 innings with a 3.24 ERA. He allowed 5 hits, walked none, and struck out 4. Opposing batters hit .172 off him.

Lively is a 32-year-old right-hander with a career mark of 8-17, 5.05 ERA. Last year with the Reds he was 4-7, 5.38. Left-handed hitters hammered him last year for a .918 OPS. Righties hit .699, so I'm sure the Red Sox will stack their batting order with lefties. This could get ugly rather quick.

I don't see any reason to think Lively can get through the Sox batting order twice without a lot of damage.

The Sox are starting Tanner Houck, a 27-year-old right-hander with a career record of 17-20, 3.74 ERA. This year in three starts he's gone 17.2 innings with a 2.04 ERA, so he's been outstanding. He has walked just two batters in three starts, so you have to be aggressive.

Current Guardians are 7-for-21 against Houck and all six Guardians who have faced him have a hit. Kwan is 2-for-2 and both Josh Naylor and Jose have homered off him. Maybe that success will continue.

Houck went six shutout innings in his first two starts, but in his last start against the Angels he allowed 12 hits and 4 runs in 5.2 innings. The Guardians have 23 hits and 16 runs in the first two games so maybe they will get to Houck a bit.

Not counting the two ghost runners the Guardians have scored 14 runs in 20 innings against a pitching staff that came in with the lowest ERA in baseball. Not half bad.

The Guardians might have a couple of things going for them. One, Rafael Devers was pulled out of Tuesday's game with knee discomfort so he might be out. And Tyler O'Neill, who is by far their best hitter so far, missed last night's game after getting stitches in his head. I don't know if he'll still be out.

Also, the Sox bullpen has been worked over pretty good in this series. Bernandino, Weissart, and Winckowski pitched in the first two games so I assume they're out, especially Wink who has thrown 51 pitches. Their other lefty besides Bernardino, Joely Rodriguez, threw 31 pitches Tuesday so I think both their lefties will be down.

The Sox bullpen has pitched 10.1 innings the last two days, so they are somewhat depleted. But the Guardians' bullpen has pitched 10 innings so they're in the same boat. If Lively can't get through five innings we could be in trouble. However, Eli Morgan is the only Guardians pitcher who pitched in both games in this series, so everybody but Morgan should be available.

In the first two games the bottom third of the Guardians batting order is 9-for-26 with 6 RBI's. That's a .346 batting average. What a difference from last year when we usually had Straw and Hedges or Miale coming up.

 

[southernflyer]

Man, If Tito's teams could have had an April run like the past three weeks...

A win tomorrow and the G's will match their April '23 win total at 13. They didn't win their 15th game until May 6th.

When the G's won their 12th game of the year:
'23: April 26th
'22: May 5th (season started 4/7)
'21: April 30th
'19: April 20th
'18: April 24th
'17: April 27th (started 4/3)
'16: May 4th (started 4/5)
'15: May 13th (started 4/6)
'14: May 2nd

 

[MirORich]

Not everyone can handle to role of Ace or the role of closer.

In theory trading from a position of strength is appealing but sometimes in the bullpen you move a guy’s responsibility slot up or down one spot and mentally it changes their ability to perform.

So I just wouldn’t be in a rush to trade a guy like Clase when he’s still young and under super favorable team control for a long time. Never say never of course but given the ever changing nature of relief pitchers, I’m just not one who’d be quick to do it or root for it

 

[CATS44]

It will be interesting to see how the FO manages the roster the next two days.

Lively will start tomorrow and somebody has to go down. Almost has to be a reliever.

IMO the likeliest candidate is Beede, even though he doesn't have options.

But that leaves the bullpen short, backing a SP who cannot be expected to give us any length. Only Sandlin and Herrin didn't pitch tonight. Curry can't go, because he started Monday.

After the game, Lively probably goes back down, but who comes up.

Would they bring up a reliever, too? Doing so would mean that another reliever has to go down...and everybody is doing well. On the other hand, if Lively gets blown out in the third inning, he could use up his 80 pitches early. That could mean that our bullpen is in deep danger, not just for the game, but in the long term. Somebody could get hurt.

Bring on David Fry.

 

[southernflyer]

Game 3 preview:

The Guardians look to clinch a series win after taking the first two games by a combined score of 16-7. This one won't be easy as the Guardians start Ben Lively in his first major league appearance of the season. Lively, acquired in the off-season, started two games in Columbus going 8.1 innings with a 3.24 ERA. He allowed 5 hits, walked none, and struck out 4. Opposing batters hit .172 off him.

If not Blake can pitch half as well as not Justin we can have a winning record for the week against the Yanks/Sox with another game to play on Thursday. Most of us would taken that scenario last Thursday without a second thought.

 

[Criznit]

On the plus side, Ben Lively is pitching for his MLB life. He does have some skills, and we are pretty good with pitchers... I am hoping for a similar performance to Curry's, 4+ innings with minimal damage.

75 pitches... Give or hopefully take a few.

 

[KluberSociety]

It will be interesting to see how the FO manages the roster the next two days.

Lively will start tomorrow and somebody has to go down. Almost has to be a reliever.

IMO the likeliest candidate is Beede, even though he doesn't have options.

But that leaves the bullpen short, backing a SP who cannot be expected to give us any length. Only Sandlin and Herrin didn't pitch tonight. Curry can't go, because he started Monday.

After the game, Lively probably goes back down, but who comes up.

Would they bring up a reliever, too? Doing so would mean that another reliever has to go down...and everybody is doing well. On the other hand, if Lively gets blown out in the third inning, he could use up his 80 pitches early. That could mean that our bullpen is in deep danger, not just for the game, but in the long term. Somebody could get hurt.

Bring on David Fry.

Beede just won a free ticket to the Colum-bus from his performance tonight. Lively could easily take over the mop-up role if he doesn't stay in the rotation, if not there's other options too.

 

[CATS44]

Beede may not get to Columbus, as the Guards just acquired another lightning in a bottle type with no options...Pedro Avila...from the Padres.

He misses bats, but everything else is...uh...unsightly.

 

[CATS44]

Beede just won a free ticket to the Colum-bus from his performance tonight. Lively could easily take over the mop-up role if he doesn't stay in the rotation, if not there's other options too.

We have lots of questionable options, but what we need is immediate help, without being forced to send down a hot reliever.

We now have added Avila, who has to remain on the roster.

So, it looks like Beede will be DFAd, Lively will be sent back down after his start, and Avila will join the party on Thursday.

 

[smalls1129]

Congratulations to the Cleveland Guardians, who now possess the best winning percentage in baseball and are 9-2 on the road.

Still only one game ahead of those pesky Royals, however, and two games ahead of those pesky Tigers.

This is starting to remind me of the 94 season. Young team, in an underrated but young overall division that is surprising the baseball world early. We'll see how much is a mirage but the central does appear to be a walk through. NOT comparing styles or individual teams, hell nearly all of baseball is different than 30 years ago. Side note, only thing we're 'missing' is the old vets of that team.

 

[MD13]

Barlow just has a really funky game and an even funkier season to this point. Steady diet of slow breaking balls with the occasional barely 90 mph fastball. He’s been walking absolutely everyone and yet no one is really crushing any of his pitches, he’s inducing an insane anmount of ground balls, he’s not getting hitters to chase much but his whiff% has so far been absolutely elite.

Some (or all of these) have to converge to the mean pretty soon.

 

[sportscoach]

We have lots of questionable options, but what we need is immediate help, without being forced to send down a hot reliever.

We now have added Avila, who has to remain on the roster.

So, it looks like Beede will be DFAd, Lively will be sent back down after his start, and Avila will join the party on Thursday.

Lively has no options so he has to stay up...

 

[CleveRocks]

Ok, I understand Clase is a ground ball guy, but that is exactly why I don't like him closing in a one run inning. Batters make contact and shit happens.. I want that old school fireballer that's going to give me three outs in a 2-1 game.

I am willing to learn if some stathead can 'splain that grounballers are better in close games.. but that's not what my casual fan brain thinks right now..

 

[BMAN]

Unleash the Gabe.

 

[sportscoach]

Moderator speaking here with a request. Can we please try to avoid making declarative statements like, "Clase isn't going anywhere."

If someone says now would be a good time to trade him and you disagree, please respond by saying, "I don't think Antonetti would want to fix what isn't broken at this time", or something like that. Even better would be to explain why you don't think the Guardians would trade him.

And if someone says, "Clase isn't going anywhere", please interpret that to mean, "In my opinion, they aren't going to trade him, but I could always be mistaken".

Thank you. A little respect and etiquette goes a long way.

I get what you are saying, but I said "Clase isn't going anywhere, I think it would mentally sink this team" He took part of my context rather than the whole thing...

This team is rolling and he has been trying to trade Kwan and Clase for max value while cutting Hedges/trading him for anything... I get the point of doing that on paper, but on paper, means little to nothing since it never includes the mental/chemistry side of the game.

It makes no sense to listen to any offers on any of the main nucleus of guys whatsoever...

We brought in Hedges to be a captain/glue to this team. We had Bethancourt, who career wise is a way better hitter and still a plus defender, and on paper, is the guy to keep between the two. Yet we went and spent 3 million more for Hedges... This FO isn't going to do that unless they 100% felt they needed him...

Kwan is a main cog of this team, we lose a lot of games without him at the top of the lineup. I get we lack some power in the OF, and traditional LF is a power spot, but he's an All-Star in his position in 24...

Clase I feel like is fine as a closer, but IF we move him, the return better be amazing plus with Stephan out, who is our closer? Aleman, Walters etc are still in the minors... Gaddis is learning a new role (and doing extremely well) but it's still a new role. Smith and Herrin have some stuff, but haven't always been known for command, so maybe not a closer in a sense...

We cannot afford to trade Clase IF we are contending because it would send the wrong message to the team. IF anything we are going to go add a veteran SP like a Blackblurn or OF like Taylor Ward. Antonetti is going to shuffle (Aka Beede, Aviles etc) the end of the bench to see IF we can get better that way until the trade deadline and IF we are in contention, then go upgrade and not in contention, he will listen to Clase offers, but while we are in contention, we aren't gonna be moving or even listening to Clase offers right now in a sense..