We’ve got no food. We’ve got no jobs. Our Pets’ HEADS ARE FALLING OFF
Well how fun was last night?! Gavin set a career high in Ks with only 3 base runners, the pen came in and did its job while the offense provided 2 run homers for the lead, for insurance, and another to give Cade the night off. Just a clean, professional win and great baseball all around… So surely they can do that again, right?
Yeah I didn’t think so either.
Coming into this series, I knew Game 1 was critical because Game 2 was a matchup
between a very shaky Joey Cantillo and a very dominant Cy Young hopeful Dylan Cease. And while, yes, “anything can happen”, let’s just say I wasn’t banking on winning this one.
Cease has been outstanding. 1.67 ERA on the road this year. 0.90 WHIP since the All Star Break. Tied for the American League Lead (with Gavin!) for strikeouts. Anyway you cut it, the Guards needed to be sharp as Larry Walker’s mullet if they wanted any chance tonight…
Going down 6-0 before your 5th hitter even comes to the plate is not a smart plan. 0 out of 10. Would not recommend!
(Video unavailable: uh oh!)
From the very first pitch you knew it wasn’t gonna be pretty. 92mph single. Next pitch was a 99.9 mph flyout. They were swinging early and they were seeing beach balls. Vladdy put a dent in the 19 foot wall for the first run, and Joey danced around another 100mph lineout to leave the 1st only down 1.
Unfortunately you need to play 9 of these!
The 2nd was a disaster. Singles to Big Ern & Gimé followed by a Straw walk had the bases loaded with former Clevelanders. JC the Sunshine Man was able to get 3 ground balls that inning, unfortunately it only resulted in 2 outs. And with 2 outs in the inning, what appeared to be the final out ended up being a 2 run lollipop throwing error followed shortly by a 3 run homer. From out of the inning, to 5 unearned runs, just like that.
For what it’s worth, it was a bad error on Genao. 2 hopper to end the inning you need to make a good throw. Cant just assume the short throw is always gonna be the easy play- but a young kid with a learning experience. This certainly isn’t all on him. Some people #onhere are even blaming Bazzana for Genao’s bad throw (maybe he took the wrong first step but come on, that throw was 12 feet in the air). But as much as we want to blame Genao, Cantillo struggled mightily yet again. Everything over the plate was absolutely blistered, he was even giving up extra base hits to Myles Straw. And of course, you can’t win if you don’t score. And while you’d like to come to bat with a fighter’s chance, as a hitter, it’s still on you to perform. No matter the score.
(Uhhh my editor is telling me there’s nothing to embed here; game might not be good!)
The good thing is it was a lot of bad for only one Loss. In July and August it felt like they would spread out all that bad stuff over the course of a week, costing them game after game, losing series after series. So fortunately, this was all one game. One bad Loss.
Oh, and I know I’m telling on myself here- but in the interest in keeping things entertaining, my “Old man take of the Night” goes to Angel Genao! For when Straw beat out that infield single… You’re down 7-0. Your error indirectly cost us 5 runs earlier. I’m not saying you have to sit in timeout all night, but save the smile for when you get a base hit- not when yet another guy reaches base and shortly there after touches home.
Again- it’s a self admitted old man take. I’ll be the first one tweeting his name in all caps when he launches his next homer. But on nights like tonight, I think every fan is allowed to be a little mad.
The Blue Jays would go on to pile on throughout the evening, while the Guardians were already on to the next one. 11-0 was the Final score, and it felt every bit of Eleven to Zero.
(Guys I’m telling you, there’s nothing to show- just flush it and move on!)
TL/DR; Austin Hedges pitched. That’s how bad it was.
Some good news? Chase DeLauter had a 3 hit game and Patrick Bailey added 2 more for them to both continue their very hot streaks. The rest of the team went 1-25 (David Fry hit a mammoth shot in the 9th that went 1 foot at 52mph). Yeah.
Guardians/Blue Jays Finale is set for Thursday at 1:10PM when Tanner Bibee will take on Jose Soriano. The Guardians need a win to split the season series and have a chance at a tie-breaker.
