Listener Emails and Future Outlook

Thanks for joining me on this Cleveland baseball morning, the final from Progressive Field in Cleveland, it's the Guardians taking two games out of three over the Seattle Mariners . Boy, just in the nick of time with the finale on Sunday, the Guardians pulling out a six to five win scoring eight five runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to secure the series victory. I'm David Barris, lifelong Cleveland Baseball fan and I want to talk about the actual game on the field. The thing I enjoy watching baseball being played . And I'm going to be honest with you, I am always honest with you. I was watching this Sunday finale. I was driving home from our family vacation and 'd been up since five in the morning, barely any sleep. I was trying to stay awake on the road and just it was a brutal game through seven innings. If you're a guardians fan or you're just a fan of offense . The guardians were doing nothing they were leaving runners in scoring position. They were they were leaving men on the bases , but they were just doing nothing to entertain and I couldn't I couldn't do it. I could I had to stay awake . I was on the road, the whole family was asleep around me. I had to stay awake . So I switched off the game after seven innings . Put on some music. I needed Chris Menez and then Underwood and Andre Knot were doing nothing to keep me awake. The conversation wasn't interesting. The game wasn't interesting. I needed to stay awake . Where did they go with runners in scoring position in this one? They finally come through with some hits in the eighth inning obviously four for thirteen. They left twelve on base in the game . And I mean they were getting thrown out on the base pass when they did have opportunities. There just wasn't a big hit anywhere in sight . So with a four to one deficit after seven innings, I turn the game off. I never do that, right? I never do that . I'm the guy that will stay to the end of the blowout and just stay sit in my seat s and watch through the end of the blowout , but I needed to stay awake and after like after like a half hour I was like, I guess I should check on the final score, you know, make sure that that four to one score locked in. It didn't get any worse and I open up the sports app on my phone and there we go. It's it's six to four after at the end of eight and I was like, what did I miss? What did I do ? I missed everything. That's what I did. So of course of course I went back, caught all the highlights last night once I got home . So I'm all caught up on it, but I blew it. I blew it as a Guardians fan yesterday. You know , you gotta do what you got to do to survive on the road , especially when you start when you when the alarm goes off at five AM and you start driving . So all right, let's get into it. Let's get into this series that I did not think we would be celebrating. I didn't think we'd be doing a happy episode. And it's kind of interesting the two emails we got from Bob and from Rick kind of are like the opposite ends of that. Like Bob had the faith . He hung in there and Rick was actually with me. Rick Rick couldn't take that game on Sunday . So yeah, it was it was hard to watch until it was fun. It really was. The Guardians offense with runners in scoring position is just getting worse and worse and worse . Like I kind of want to crush them because it was a really boring series offensively except for like two inning s , but those two innings were enough to come up with two W's and I guess that's a way to play. I guess that's a style of baseball you can go for , you know, it takes until the fourth inning. So what was it? Their second time through the lineup on Saturday's game . Yeah , basically yeah, they just turned the lineup over Bazana , Manzardo, Calia Watson were getting their second shot at it. Cooper English gets his second in the game. We'll talk about that in a second . So it was the second time through the lineup that the Guardians were able to deliver against Seattle on Saturday night against Logan Gilbert on Saturday night. Although Gilbert stays in there and almost pitches a complete game. I couldn't believe how long he stayed in the game for especially after he gave up runs early . But then it didn't matter how many times they faced Emerson Hancock. They had to get into the bullpen and finally fin,ally the M ariners Bullpen buckles finally they find the guy that they could do damage against and Michael Rucker , you know, star of Guardians of the Galaxy and the Walking Dead Series, probably a different Michael Rucker , but they get him for four runs in that eighth inning. So they finally find a weak spot in the Mariners Bullpen . All right, yeah, we will get into all the details of the series. We will get to your emails . Let's just talk the cooper angle of it all. Let's talk the transactions, the additions to this lineup as the series was going on. So I believe was it Friday? Yeah, Friday Cooper Ingle gets the call up, gets his first start at DH and here we go. We needed some reinforcements on offense. Here we go. And I'm sure you were all celebrating like I was, Stewart Fairchild has been designated for assignment . No longer will Stuart Fairchild be batting sixth in the lineup, which was insane . Insane that they even tried that . There's some of their decision making with the lineup . It's all over the place . It's all over the place. I get that maybe Stuart Fairchild has some success against left handed pitching when that guy doesn 't need to be anywhere near the middle of your lineup. He needs to be betting ninth or off the team, which is where he is now . So you get Cooper Ingle up here, then you get more reinforcements on Sunday. You get chased a lotter back from injury . They had been kind of telling us he was doing baseball activities. He was out there on the field pre game going through stuff. So he kind of felt like he was close. And yeah, whatever's going on with his ribs and after that crash into the wall, he's back Pete help and gets option back to Columbus . And now you got some more reinforcements in your outfield. It'll be interesting to see who plays in center. I was talking to my brother about this and it's like you have to you almost have to play Quan More in center. Like it sucks because we've seen throughout the last month, I feel like especially as Pete Halpin's been up here. We've seen like Quan is still a gold glover in center in left field. Kuan is no doubt about it the best one of the best left fielders, especially the way he plays the ball off the wall and gets the ball back in. I mean, guys aren't even going for it. Guys who normally would take a double off anybody else are just holding at first I think didn't he hold Julio Rodriguez to a slong single off the wall because everybody knows Quan is going to throw you out a second base . So where he is a gold glover in left field , he's probably average. He 's serviceable in center field. He gets the job done . Is he going to win the gold glove out there? No, Julio Rodriguez is probably going to win a gold glove out there . But he's fine. He's not a liability. He's good. He's a good outfielder, but it's just not the same he doesn't impact the game the same in center field as he does in left field. Okay, I will agree with some of our emailers on that, but if you want to get Cooper Ingle out there in the lineup, it has to be left field. If you want to get Cleo Watson and Chase the Water out there in the outfield , I feel like Cleo Watson's going to have to play left . I don't know how many innings those guys played in center field in Minor League baseball. I'm sure Cleo Watson or Chase A lotter could play center field, but especially if you're going to get Cooper Ingle in the lineup, he's going to have to be in left field, which moves Quan over to center. So we'll see who man centerfield the most, you know, where they find ways to fit these guys in it's also going to be interesting as on how Martinez and Jose miras get healthy . Those were the obvious what they did with Pete Helpinstar Fairchild were the obvious roster decisions, the upcoming roster decisions are a little bit trickier. Are you you're going to have to say goodbye to somebody who you you've had around here for a long time . Does Gabriel Arius finally get, you know, DFAD once Jose Ramirez gets healthy? Does something happen to David Fry or Daniel Schneiman once once once Anja Martinez gets healthy or does Cooper Ingle or Cleo Watson find themselves option back down? Like those are the easy moves because you don't have to, you know, lose anyone from your organization. But I mean C,leo Watson is hitting this guy is driving and runs. This guy is a huge part of your offense surviving right now with those guys injured. So I don't I don't see how when Martinez comes back you could say goodbye to Cleo Watson. So maybe it is Cooper Engle. Maybe he's getting a taste of the majors right now and he goes back down, but I think Gabriel Arius as soon as Jose Ramirez is back, I think Gabriel Arius's time is marked hopefully hopef,ully Cooper Ingle is hitting and Gabriel Arius is the one who pays for it. So Cooper Ingel is here. I feel like we've read the scouting report on Cooper Ingel a bunch of times on the show, but just to remind you of his scouting grades . They've graded him as his hit tool. Remember this is a twenty to eighty grading scale . So his hit is a fifty five, his power is only a forty five, his run is a thirty. So I don't expect that much from him . Arm is a forty five fielding fifty overall fifty five. I feel like that Armin fielding is probably more for playing catcher than it is for anything else. One of the best things about him is his eye. He is patient at the plate. He's got a great eye . He had walked more than he had struck out every season until this one. He was at forty one walks to fifty strikeouts. So striking out a little bit more , but also slugging better than he's ever slugged . And you know, usually when you make that leap up to A , those numbers dip a little bit, but he had been a career he's a career for sixty one slugging. He was slugging five fifty one in Columbus, you know, when we called him up . So he was up to twelve home runs the most in his career. So maybe he was striking out a little bit more because he was selling out for a little bit more power and being a little bit more aggressive . So now he's up here with us. We'll see if that eye at the plate, that patience at the plate pays off . He does go over two in his debut. No stri keouts and a walk . He comes through with his first RBI hit and drives in two runs, also strikes out twice in Saturday's game, DH again, then he finally gets the start in left field and two walks to two strikeouts does score a run. So right now is that put him at that puts him at three walks to four strikeouts. Okay , we'll see. We'll see. It's okay. It's okay if that number isn't, you know, if that walk to strikeout ratio isn't above one, you know, it's okay if you know you are using it to slug to be a little bit more aggressive at the plate and you know, show off your power a little bit more. It's okay . So yeah, so we'll see how the Cooper English experiment goes. He still Ramirez and Anjal Martina still have a few weeks to go. So Engl's going to get a little bit of a runway here probably through the All Star Break and we'll see how it goes . All right, so let's get into the details of this game . This series . You start on Friday night. Again, you get great starting pitching. Let's just talk about that. The top storyline should be the starting pitching . Once again it gets a tough Seattle Mariners lineup is really good. Joey Cantilo, six innings pitch two hits , one or run . He gives that up in the third inning . How do they get him for a run? I forget exactly how this went down . Home run C,ol Emtmers on. That's right, the hometown kid , the Ohio and Ohio native Colt Emerson with one hundred and four mile per hour home run. He got like an inside, I think it was an inside hanging change up . It was just a bad pitch but he really stepped stepped back and delivered this one into right field. Yeah, he started off the bat starts off with a called strike curveball on the outside edge. Then he throws one below the knees that he lays off, throws him a cutter below the knees that he swings over. So he's actually cancelles in pitchers count. He's in a one two count . There's no need for him to throw this pitch but he just misses wildly with a change up throws it up and in and Colt Emerson steps out and pulls this thing into right field one hundred four mile four miles per hour off the bat. twenty sixty relaunch channel three hundred and sixty one feet and the whole Emerson family in attendance gets to celebrate the solo home run back here in Ohio. It would have been home run twenty threening out of thirty ballparks. So that's it. That's all Cantalo gives up. Meanwhile , he's out there. He walks two, he strikes out nine ninety pitches. He's only hard hit three times. That is a dominant it's a quality start because it's six innings pitch, three runs or less, but it's a dominant start really. I mean, he was making guys look foolish throwing the curveball a ton of the day. fifty percent curve ball on the day. Actually barely used that changeup, only ten percent change up , fifty percent curveball to twenty three percent fastball. Wow, and it was working. He had ten whiffs on nineteen swings. He had a fifty three percent wiff rate on that curveball. It's a forty nine percent wiff rate total on the day. Imagine that half the time they took the bat off their shoulder against Joey Cantillo. They were swinging and missinging add sixteen called strikes. It's a thirty eight percent CSW . Yeah, eighty three point eight mile per hour average exit velocity off of that change up that one change up that Cole Emerson hit really kind of throws off the hard hit numbers. Otherwise it would be a lot less . Yeah , wow , really impressive from Cantillo there. And so the first time through the lineup, he was forty one percent curveball and then he's he doubles down on this thing like he really leans into it. Then it's fifty four percent the second time through the order and then he doesn't go quite through the third time through the order but he was at sixty seven percent curveball. So the longer the game went on, the more he was just leaning and leaning on this curveball . All right, next question is where was he locating it? He was locating it . He was throwing inside and out . He was really wow. He was making him go down below the strike zone. A ton. Let's see how much of this swing and miss is yeah, a ton of it is below the strike zone. Only two of them were in the zone. Everything else is below the zone. He's throwing it to both sides of the plate to left his and righties man. They were both having to face that nasty curveball. So man, can't tell. That is fun. I wonder what his go to his personal page. I wonder if this is updated. I would assume it yeah, this game was Friday. So this is definitely updated . What is the value on that his fastball run value is fourth percentile at minus eleven , but his breaking ball run value is ninet ieth percentile at plus five. His off speed run value is seventy six percentile at plus one. His pitching run value overall is only twenty fifth percentile at minus four. So a guy having a good season of six and three, three point eight seven ERA and seventeen starts. He's got a one three five whip . Guy having a pretty good season . The percentile rankings aren't totally in his favor . All right, let's see the individual pitches here . Just the break on his curveball is elite. Like it's near it it's bright red. It won't tell me exactly what percentile it is, but bright red means towards the top of the le ague when it comes to just the vertical drop on his curveball . Same thing with his slider. Slider has elite movement. Change up does not . Let's see. The run value on his fastball is minus eight. The change up is plus one. The curveball is a plus six run value. By far his best pitch this season . Last year was the change up was his best pitch at a plus four. The curveball was only plus two . So the curve ball has gotten better , has gotten filthier . It's actually got less drop than last year . It's got more horizontal break than last year. So maybe he did change a little something with it. It's coming in a little faster this year . Let's see about the spin . Let's see, what is going to give me the RPMs on these pitches? Where do I got to go to find that? I know it's somewhere here . So last year, the curveball was spinning at two thousand six hundred and fifty RPMs. This year it's two thousand six hundred fifty seven. So it's same spin , but it's getting he's getting a little bit more horizontal movement with it. So maybe that's making it an even better pitch. Something's working with that curve ball because he is really , really good with it . All right, last year yeah, last year it was sixty second percentile when it came to his breaking ball run value. So something has changed to twenty twenty six. It's got him in the ninetieth percentile . All right, so an elite start from Joey Cantillo, but they score off your bullpet, Tim Herring gives up two walks and a run. Daniel Spino gives up two walks and a run . So you're not helping yourself. If you're pitching late in a ball game, you can't be walking guys . You can't it's it's death for the bullpen when you're out there walking guys. So as good as a spino is and we know he's got skills. We know he's got talent. As good as he is, you can't be walking guys like that late in a game . So the bullpen gives up runs and the offense does nothing out of the first inning . Most of the hits in this game for the Guardians came in that first inning manzardo with single with two ol's Calia Watson with double hundred one point three off the bat actually would have been a home run in twelve out of thirty ballparks, but it's a double and progressive field. Manzardo actually scores all the way from first. Are you kidding me ? So they get a run in the first inning. Cooper Ingle will ground out in his first at bat but Caleo Watson driving and runs in the first inning and then they just go ice cold after that . They had a they had two guys on in the fourth Rochio with a leadoff single, Cooper Ingle with a one out walk . Did somebody get thrown out stealing there or something like that? I only see two outs on the scoreboard here. So I'm guessing somebody got out on the base paths there lead off single in the fifth but they can't do anything with it and then one two three in the sixth one two three in the seventh, one two three in the eighth and one two three in the ninth . can They't touch and Andres Munios for the save . So yeah, the Guardians offense brings nothing four hits on the day and after scoring in the first inning, you thought maybe this was going to be a fun game, but no, theard Guian off'sense goes ice cold . All right, let's get into Saturday's game because they do and they got one while they scored two different innings, but they get one shot at Logan Gilbert. They make it count. Like I said, that second time through the lineup . The big storyline again is Slade Zaconi, it's Slade's the starter. It's six innings pitched again, three hits no earn runs, two walks, four strikeouts, keeps the ball in the ballpark on eighty seven pitches. He's only hard hit five times which for slate Zaconi, that is incredible . I feel like he's been pitching really good in June. Let's go to the splits by month . Yeah, he is dominating now in five starts for the month of June. He's got a one eighty eight ERA with a one point zero eight whip . He is dominating . He has given up as many runs in the month of June as he gave up in his one start in March . Six runs. That's it for the month of June . My God, he if he's not up there for pitcher or the month for the month of June, I will be shocked . He has been dominant. He had a five nineteen ERA in April , a four hundred and thirty one ERA in May , which was like great, right? That's fantastic . And then and then yeah, one hundred eighty eight . Six of those runs a came have come on three home runs given up this month. So like they're they're just maybe there were a couple solo home runs against them, but they're not rallying nine walks to twenty strikeouts . Man, this yeah, this month of June has been very, very good for Slate Zuconi. So what was he doing? What was working for him on this one? Let's go to his player breakdown page for slates of Coney and getting a lot of called strikes on his sinker in his cutter combo not a huge whiff rate day only twenty one percent whiff rate only four strikeouts but sixteen called strikes twenty eight percent CSW . He was fifty four percent first pitch strike, but the average exit velocity was only eighty three point two off him. The only thing they really hit hard was his four seam fastball . There were a couple hard hit balls off his sinker, his cutter, his curve , but only five on the day , an eighty three point two milepower exit velocity for slates at Coney, a guy who we're used to seeing get hammered but survive is now starting to figure things out and the bullpen almost blows the game Sean Armstrong late. It's not walks this time. He's just giving up hits. He gives up a three run home run to Randy Aro Rzosearena and you know, suddenly Seattle feels like they have life. Luckily Kate Smith is able to shut things down in the ninth inning, pick up the save in the four to three win . They were bragging. They were bragging on all these one run games the guardians have played in all how good they are in one run games . You don't have to live like flake like this. Like there was so much there was so much rhetoric. There were so many things said by the announcers and going back and watching the highlights, you kind of get both the comments from the radio announcers and from the TV announcers. And there were so many comments by Hamilton by Chris Himanez that were like about way the guardians play and guards ball and oh look at look at them doing it again guards ball like it's getting to the point where like if we didn't win the series we got lucky we won this series and we don't come up with a five run eighth inning . You would have felt a lot more anger and you know more frustration with this team coming from me because I don't think guards ball is the way you're not going to win a world series with guards ball. I don't think it's going to happen . Like right now if the playoffs were to start today and the Guardians would be in do you do you feel like any team would fear us ? Do you feel like we'd be favored in any series, let alone series would be favored in any game to win right now, even with how good our starting pitching has been ? I just don't think there's enough confidence in our offense to say that this team can pull off a playoff series win and I'm sorry guards ball is not going to get us there and frankly we're not even that good at guards ball. We're getting thrown out on the base path s . You know, I watch guys get thrown out Cleo Watson get thrown out trying to stretch a weird infield play a little chopper on the infield trying to steal an extra base and gets thrown out on a perfect throw frankly from the Mariners pitcher, but it was a gutsy play. It just didn't work. But like we're not we're we're getting we're not stealing as much as we, you know, think we are and the buns yeah, yeah, Qu,an gets a bun down and beats it out for a hit . So that's interesting was that one of those series was that one of those innings where they actually wasted the opportunity the bas,es loaded opportunity . That just this small ball , we're not I don't think we're as good at small ball as we think we are and frankly I'd rather see some long ball in here. I'd rather see a team that wins by two or three runs. I'd rather see a team that doesn't rely on their bullpen and their closer to save every game where they're not hanging on by the skin of their teeth every game . Like you don't have to play baseball like this. This isn't a style to be bragging about anymore. I don't think you know, it's fun . Yeah, it was fun when you had the bullpen to back it up, I think, but I'm still not confident we have the bullpen to back it up and so yeah I don't know if we're going to survive playing guards ball like I don't think that should be something we hang our hat on anymore. I'm just I'm tired of it . I just want to see us get some hits with runners in scoring position. I just want to see us win some games so okay kind of saving that rant for the end of talking about these games, but let's finish up here because how does the Guardian score their runs? Well, they do have a rally in the fourth inning. They do get some hits with runners in scoring position . So Bazana had singled, Manzardo had single Cal Watson doubles them in and then Cooper Ingle with a two run single through the right side, his first hit as a major league, ninety five point nine off the bat. So you got Cleo Watson and Cooper Ingle in the middle of your lineup now driving in runs where that used to be Stuart Fairchild. Like come on, this is this is better. This is better situation right here . So the rookies are getting it done. Of course Gabriel Ra strikes out and then Patrick Bailey grounds out to end the threat , but you do add more in the fifth inning Bazana singles and then Rochio with a double to drive him in. So a good job there on that Cooper Ingle single. Oh yeah, Cleo Watson was the second runner came at some point in this series they sent Kyle Manzardo to score and I was like, wow, he sent Kyle Manzardo, you know, around the bases of score. That's brave. Like that's that's that's really brave because Manzardo is not the fleet of foot. There was a moment in this we'll get to a Berugi or door pushes luck probably a little too hard but we'll get to it. So that's it. That's the offense. They're they're quiet for the rest of the game. In fact, they go after that fifth inning, they go one, two, three in the sixth to one, two, three in the seventh, one, two, three in the eighth. They don't need anything else because the pitching holds up despite Armstrong giving up that three run home run in the eighth inning hit by pitch to Julio Rodriguez a single by Dominic Canzone and then boom A Rosa Raine goes one hundred eight point three off the bat. It was four hundred twenty seven feet out to center field thirty out of thirty ballparks. It was a shot . So yeah, the bullpen figuring out roles. What is Armstrong? What is he because he's in here in the eighth inning trying to help you get to Kate Smith get to the end of the ball game. Actually , it was a non safe situation. It was a four, nothing lead when Armstrong came in. And then on Sunday, Armstrong's in there pitching the sixth inning . So was it a matchup thing or what is Armstrong's role with this team. Is it late innings? Is it middle relief? What I'm still trying to figure out some of these roles in the bullpen here . So yeah, the Guardians hang on to win on Saturday and then on Sunday they get, ch ased a lot or back in the lineup and it's a long wait. It is a long wait. They're down three, nothing. They just, you know, they rally off three runs off Gavin Williams. It wasn't his best start. It wasn't his worst start, five inch pitch, six hits , three runs only two earned, three walks to six strikeouts, one hundred and three pitches. He's laboring a bit. Only hard hits six times on one hundred and three pitches . Anything working in particular for Gavin Williams on this one , sixteen called strikes, only twenty seven percent whiff rate, mostly coming on that sweeper . Nine whiffs on seventeen swings, it's a fifty three percent wiff rate on that sweeper. So that was working for him. It's only a twenty eight percent CSW , fifty six percent first pitch strike. Average exit losses off him was eighty seven point eight. So pretty good, pretty good. They hit the sinker hard . Four hard hit balls for the six came on that sinker so yeah so that pitch they were hitting hard so yeah so the guardians are just quiet all day. They're down three nothing. They scratch across one run in that fifth inning . How do they get that run in the fifth inning ? Sackfly, that's right. Okay, so they did load the bases. They did okay, this is the moment I was talking about Kwan they get three singles in a row , Gabriel Arius with a single, Austin Hedges with a single and then Quan with the bund with nobody out bunts to move them over Quan back batting in the leadoff spot by the way . I don't think it's because Quan has been doing particularly great. I think it's probably because they want Basana to hopefully hit with more runners sc inor aing pos ition and maybe be more of an RBI guy with Ramirez out . So maybe when Ramirez comes back Bazana or maybe it's just a lefty righty thing and Mazano move back into that leadoff spot but, Kuan wasa betting Leoedff. So he tries to lay down a bun and actually beats it out. So you got bases loaded and then Basana delivers a sack fly. So Chase the Lauder would line out after that and then Manzarda would fly out . So nothing to show really for the bases loaded nobody out situation. Like bases loaded nobody out and you've got your two, three, four hitters out and all you can muster is a sac fly. Like I'm glad we're hitting Sackflies. It was a problem earlier in the season , but you got to you got to have more offense in that situation. Come on, guys, you're two, three, four in the lineup. It's part of the reason I got so frustrated with this game . So they have more chances to score a two out walk to Cooper Ingle and then Schneimen with a double. They don't send Cooper Ingle. They leave it up to Patrick Bailey and he strikes out with two runners in scoring position . Then you get back to back singles with two o byun Chcease Delauder and Reese Hoskins and then they go into pinch hitters here in the seventh inning. They bring Reese Hoskins in a pinch hit. They bring David Fry to pinch it for Cale Watson, which was a huge mistake because Fry pops out and ends the threat and that's where I turned it off. I couldn't I couldn't with these guys. I couldn't leave and guys in scoring position. It just they didn't seem like they had a big hit in them and then the eighth inning comes around . They actually get out of the eighth inning. They're in trouble in the eighth inning, but they get a Rosa Ran in the ground and do a double play . And then Rocchio with the leadoff single, Cooper Angle, drawing a walk, man, he's got a good eye . Schneimen with a single Schneimen drives in the run with his single, drives in Rockeo to score . Patrick Bailey lays down a sack bund, but then Steven Kuan walks to load the bases Travis Bazana pops out. Oh my god, are they going to do it again? Are they going to leave the bases loaded again? No, chase the lotter delivers this time. A hundred to six point five miles per off the bat rocks one up the middle, drives in two runs to score. Who comes in Engl comes in a score and Schneimen comes in a score and then Reese Hoskins follows it up with a double into the left field corner keeps it fair off the wall Rosarina comes up with it. This is the one so Quan would score Quan would be the go ahead run in this situation, right? And then Chase the Lauder would be that sixth run . This is where Rugio door may have been pushing his luck a little bit. It's a strong throw in from left field. The ball beats Chase the law or the ball is there in plenty of time . Is it is it Cal Raleigh behind the plate just can't hold on to the ball? Who is DH and who was catching? It was Mitch Garver . Although Kinzone pinch hit for maybe that was maybe that was in the ninth inning . It was Garver behind the plate just can't hold on to the ball and you don't see collisions at home plate very often and this was about as close to an old school collision as you're going to see because the lotter slid but you know slides into the tag Garver can't hold on to the ball De lawder scrambles back and tags home play before Garver could pick the ball back up . So he's safe . It's six to four guardians. Yeah , he probably should have been out. If Garver holds on to the ball, he's probably out and actually that played the run was huge in the ninth inning , but yeah , the Guardians rally, they actually pull it off. Hoskins delivers a big hit, the Lotter delivers a huge hit, and the Guardians pull off an incredible five run rally that I missed. So Kate Smith gets into a little bit of trouble gives up two hits to Cole Young and Col merson, strikes out Dominic Canzone. Looks like he's going to get out of it, Victor Robus with a ground ball, but it's an error by was a bazana. It was an error by Bazana there. And then the run comes in to score no the error was yeah, Erbrocio and the Bazana both had throwing errors in this one that I believe led to Mariners runs so yeah, the run comes in to score and JB Crawford luckily grounds out with runners on second and third grounds out to end the game. So Kate Smith gets out of it, gives up an unearned run, should have been out of it clean, but still gets the save his twenty sixth save on the season . Man, definitely still on pace. He's on pace to break fifty saves on the season. He's on pace to break that franchise record, which again is part of I love to see him break the franchise record, but also I hate living like this sometimes. Like can we make these three run saves instead of one run saves? Come on now . So the offense shows up and delivers Cleo Watson with a huge day , H Roseekceins with a huge day. Chase a lotter in the end a huge day driving in multiple runs and we get the job done Schneimen with a big day pinch hitting for Arius . So yeah , everybody pinch hitting except for David Fry , it actually works out it works out pretty good. Well, Bailey two, Patrick Bailey two , he yeah, I would have loved to see Cleo Watson stay into the end of this game and been up in some of these RBI situations . So the Guardians pull out the series win. They hang around first place with the White Sox . It's a party at Progressive Field. And I'm glad we did. I'm glad we did. I don't know if I can handle living this way the entire season, but hey, some late magic at Progressive Field. When have we talked about the magic at Progressive Field this season? How many how many walkoff wins have we celebrated? I don't remember many this season. It feels like yeah, it feels more like Saturdays game where maybe we score early and then just hang on to win but starting pitching dominant in this series all the starters were good frankly. The Mariner Starters were pretty good too so yeah the good starting pitching in the series and our offense is finally able to deliver a big crooked number. All right , MVP on the series . I got to go with my man Calia Watson here . Multi hit games , driving in runs earlier in the ser ies. I think Calia Watson had the best series overall . I mean, maybe you could say the starting pitching. Maybe they were all good. That's the problem. If like one starting pitcher stood out over the rest But I think Cala Watson had the best week weekend of anybody in a guardian's uniform. So I'm giving him MVP on the series and look s he's locked in as that fifth header right now. Frankly, I'm surprised they dropped Brian Rochio down to six once chase the lauder came back like could we keep Rochio batting third, the lauder fourth, maybe drop Kyle Manzardo out of this thing . Manzardo goes over three. He wasn't a part of this rally because obviously Reskins pinch hits for , but Manzardo he scores a run. He gets a hidd scenores a run on Saturday he gets a hidden scores a run. He's not driving in any runs . He is participating in the offense a little bit, but maybe dropped manzardo down in the lineup because him betting third and fourth just not getting anything done for me . So we'll see. We'll see how this lineup continues to evolve as it goes on, but yeah, let's keep Rokio hitting up there towards the top of the lineo. Come on . So one thing I wanted to point out just their hitting with runners in scoring position by month. It's actually getting worse . I was able to figure this out on Fangraphs. You can actually sort by month with a split with runners in scoring position. So the Guardians from March April were hitting two hundred and forty one with runners in scoring position . They had two hundred seventy four plate appearances with run ners in scoring positions drove in ninety run score in March April . In May, the batting average drops to seventeen , but they had more plate appearances to eighty one and they scored two more runs. ninety two runs scored. So they were doing good they were doing okay with runners in scoring position for the first two months basically of the season for the month of June it gets bad. They're now they're batting two fifteen hundred so the,ting b aatverage is still bad . They're getting less played appearances with running a scoring position by a significant amount, two hundred twenty compared to two hundred eighty one the month before and they've droven in way less runs six,ty two runs have scored from runners in scoring position situations. So thirty less runs coming in the month of June than the month of May. Yes, there's still two days left in this month, but I don't see these numbers improving that much over two days. So they ain't going to score thirty runs in the next two days. So yeah, there's been a sign they're getting worse and worse at hitting with runners and scoring position as the season's going on and it's bothering me. It is a problem. It should be bothering them too . So we'll see if they can turn it around. We'll see if Ramirez and Ham Martinez coming back can turn this thing around . All right, let's get into your emails here . So Bob was positive. He said, My wife's final quote Lord have mercy. So Bob was watching with his wife and she was hanging in there with him to the end of that Sunday finale. He says every win without hosey is precious. Absolutely great game today. Clearly getting Delauder back is huge. This team simply has big brass ones. So many elsewhere define their personalities with negativity, simply gotta stay close until Hosie returns, pitching, pitching and pitching. MVP my cardiologist . So Bob and his wife hung in there on that Sunday finale. I give you credit, Bob. You are a die hard . You mean, hopefully you weren't driving you weren't doing the same thing I was doing, which was trying to drive across the country on no sleep. Rick says, Hi Davy, my he says my timing has been off regarding my emails to you. I'm always too late. It's been an exciting season, many ups and downs yet remain in first place. It's amazing having four rookies in the lineup Sunday and coming back to win. I admit that I stopped watching after so many runners were left to die on base . So Rick, Rick was with me. Rick couldn't take it anymore. I feel you, Rick. I feel you. It was really hard to watch through seven innings. It was hard. It was they somehow figured out a way to make it hard to watch them through seven innings I will say about the timing because Rick follows up on this later, but about the timing emails don't feel like you have to email at the end of a series just like if a thought hits you in the middle of a series, you can email in. You don't have to wrap up the series like I do . Just anytime you get a thought, go ahead and email it in. Okay . So don't feel like you got to try to figure out is Davy going to record it midnight after the Sunday finale? Is he gonna record the next morning? Just get him in. It's okay . And I appreciate you just listening to Rick. So he says I was always an Arius fan, but he looks awful. That long swing of his isn't going to do it. I feel good about the Guardians winning the division. The playoffs are always scary, but the rotation has been so dependable and the bullpen is good. Hopefully the offense will become more consistent when Jose and Hel return. He says do, you have any possible trade trades by the trade deadline? I can't really think of anything, but I'm sure that something will happen. Maybe with the lowly red socks, I love to say that. Yeah, I don't I don't got any feel right now for the trade deadline. It's still a long way away . I think we definitely need help. We could definitely use help at we need someone hitting with power at first base. I don't manzard is not getting it done for me at first base with the bat red this season corner outfield although we've called up the rookies to kind of fill that corner outfield spot. So definitely can use reinforcements in the bullpen definitely can still I mean, it's working. We've survived somehow , but can you use some depth that's starting pitching? So Cal Stevens, did we talk about this? Cal Stevens is going for, I think it was Tommy John surgery, right? So Kal Stevens, the guy who you were kind of hoping would be the next big starter for your guardian, the guy you traded Shane B before, is gonna be on the shelf for a while starting pitching depth is so thin, but it's it's working. All five guys are still churnin' away out there . So let's just hang on, right? Let's hope it hangs on . So I got no good feel right now. There are definitely some teams that are separating themselves from the pack as far as being sellers at the trade deadline. So there will be some teams out there that, you know, the sharks will be circling for their veteran players. So we'll see if the guardians get in on any of that . Okay, where else does he lead off? Oh, he got he said I attended the first two games in Houston . I was lucky to actually witness an eight to one blowout. We were sitting next to a couple who lives in Illyria. I sure had fun having someone to talk guardians ball with at an Astro's game. Yeah, that's always fun. You know, Guardians fans were spread. Cleveland fans are spread all around the country. So pretty much anywhere you go, you'll have you'll have a chance to bump into a fellow Clevelander . Even when I was in Houston , I was talking to he wasn't a fellow Clevelander. He was actually from Mexico, but Cleveland was his favorite team. I think he said 'cause Jose Ramirez. So it was fun. I got to talk to a Cleveland fan too when I was in Houston for the one game I got to see there. He says he says I don't like your brother's name for bazana. It's too long. I think TAS is a catchy name, short for Tasmanian devil, which is from Australia. So good. I'm glad somebody paid attention last episode Rick and somebody crushed my brother on his nickname. He says I still enjoy listening to your podcast . I just need to get my timing down Go Go Guardians Rick in Austin. Thank you for the email rick. All right, that wraps things up. Thanks for joining me on this Cleveland Baseball morning. Man, it's fun to come on here after ser ies win. Like there weren't many of them in the month of June. It's you got one more chance. You got two more games against Texas , you know, repeat from earlier in the month. You won the series against the Yankees to kick off the month in New York and then things got bad. You lose a series to Texas, you get swept by the Yankees. You do sweep the two game quick two game set against the Tigers with the Rainout , but then you lose a series of Milwaukee, lose series to Houston, lose a series of the White Sox, and then you finally win this series against Seattle. So three you won three series the entire month of June . It's been kind of a hard month for your guardians. So I guess technically, you know, you could take two out of three from Texas here. We'll consider that part of June, right? And so yeah, we'll see how this homestand continues . This big you got four coming up against the White Sox to end this homestand. That's going to be it's going to be quite the battle because they're good at home the White Sox are. Are they as good on the road? I don't think they are. So you'll definitely have a chance there. All right, that's all my thoughts. You can follow me on Blue Sky at David Barris. You can email the show, Cleveland Baseball Mornings at Gmail. com . Let me know your thoughts. Let me know what you think of these rookies . Who are you dropping from the roster ? When Ramirez and Martinez get back, let me know and we'll discuss it on the show. So thanks again for joining me on this Cleveland baseball morning