(Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)
Coming off a 6-0 win Saturday night, where Cleveland played fantastic on all sides of the ball, The Guardians got absolutely embarrassed in Sunday night’ s rubber match game versus the Atlanta Braves, falling 13-1, with their pitching staff giving up a total of 19 hits with 2 walks.
This was the Guardians’ first series loss of the season. Cleveland was also outscored in this series, 24-12. Yikes.
Guardians’ ace”, Tanner Bibee was HORRENDOUS, giving up 8 earned runs on 11 hits in just 4.2 innings. Bibee has had an extremely rough start to the season, starting 0-2 with an ERA well over 6. The main issue for him is that he’s not getting very deep into games, in his 4 starts, only going 5.0, 4.0, 4.2, and 4.2 IP. This means his pitch count is getting high too early and he’s getting in early trouble, as well as a lack of clean innings. It seems almost every inning for Bibee, there is constant traffic on the bases. Other Cleveland Media outlets, are blaming the shoulder inflammation, that Bibee suffered back in Seattle in the Opener for his early exits, but Bibee not getting consistently deep into games has also been an issue of his.
Bibee has not been locating his pitches well so far this season, and it is a partial reason for his struggles, with tonight being a prime example, with a lot of the hits given up, coming on pitches being around the middle of the plate/zone in 2 strike counts.
Bibee is getting into way too many 3-2 and 2-2 counts, due to his nibbling around the zone, trying to go for strikeouts instead of pitching for weak contact. When you are constantly in these 3-2, and 2-2 counts, your pitch count is not just going to get high very quickly, resulting in early exits, which make the bullpen throw more than they should, but as well as causing you to make mistake pitches on pitches thrown in the middle of the zone, due to you not wanting to give up a 3-2 walk.
Tanner Bibee is going to need to figure some things out if he wants to continue to be considered the Guardians’ “ace”, because as of right now, he does not look like one.
On the offensive side for Cleveland there wasn’t much excitement but Cleveland did have a good amount of traffic all game, collecting 9 hits all game including 8 of Braves’ starter Chris Sale, as well as a walk, but Cleveland couldn’t take advantage of the early opportunities they had and before you knew it, the Guards were down 3-0 in a blink.
The Guardians did get a great game from Chase DeLauter who went 2-2 with a walk off Chris Sale, including a 100.6 MPH double to center.
Rhys Hoskins hit his first home run as a Cleveland Guardian as he took a 1-0 changeup, 411 ft to center field to get Cleveland on the board in the 6th.
Video Credit: @ Guardians Prospective on X/ MLB
The homer has an exit velocity of 102.7 MPH and it’s the first ball Hoskins has truly squared up this season and it was a good sight for Guardians fans to see some right handed power for once.
Hopefully Hoskins can really get going soon to help this offense be more successful in the upcoming future.
The Guardians are now hitting the road, heading to St. Louis for a 3 game series with the Cardinals where Cleveland looks to get back on track after losing their first series of the season, and looks to get their 10th win of the season.
RHP Gavin Williams will get the start Monday night for the Guardians vs Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore.
Game time is @ 7:45 PM ET.
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