News and Notes: Guardians Take Series from White Sox

News and Notes for Friday, July 5th, 2024

The Guardians beat the White Sox 8-4. What else would you expect? The Guardians are good and the White Sox are bad, so clearly, Cleveland won.

While it’s a bit maddening that a fifth of the White Sox wins this season have come against the Guardians, that’s baseball. Coming into the bottom of the fourth, Jared Shuster was mostly keeping the Guardians’ offense calmed down with a 1-1 score, then Steven Kwan, noted power hitter, celebrated his announcement as an all-star game starter with a home run:

The Guardians proceeded to score three more runs in the inning:

The team brought Angel Martinez back up for Jose Tena just prior to the game and that turned out to be a good idea as Martinez went 2 for 4 with a walk and a double. Kwan had three hits total, and the Naylor brothers each had two hits, with one of Josh’s being a double.

Meanwhile, Ben Lively continued to be Mr. Reliable, striking out six in six innings, giving up six hits, one walk and three runs. Scott Barlow and Hunter Gaddis each had scoreless innings, striking out two, and Nick Sandlin closed things out for the Guards, giving up a home run to Lenyn Sosa who tortured Cleveland pitching this week.

I’m a fan of the Angel Martinez call-up. Martinez has a healthy pull rate (around 48%) and fly ball rate (around 40%) over the past two years, a 19/9 K/BB/9, has hit left-handed pitching at around an .850 OPS in the minors, and seems capable in centerfield. At only 22 years old, if he can continue to show the ability to hold his own against major league pitching, we may have a pretty exciting player on our hands here, folks.

Speaking of exciting players, Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan will start in the All-Star game for the American League:

Speaking of All-Star game weekend, MLB Pipeline released another mock draft with 15 of 20 MLB scouting directors predicting that Cleveland will take Travis Bazzana at number one on Sunday, July 14th.

Jon Becker at FanGraphs offered a trade deadline preview of AL teams, and mentioned Jack Flaherty, RHP, Detroit, Trevor Williams, RHP, Washington, Frankie Montas, RHP, Cincinnati, Nick Pivetta, RHP, Boston, Yusei Kikuchi, LHP, Toronto, Taylor Ward, RH OF, Los Angeles and Brent Rooker, RH OF/DH, Oakland as possible targets. Williams would be a perfect target if healthy, but hard to imagine the Guardians’ acquiring another pitcher with an elbow issue, especially considering he hasn’t pitched in quite a while. I’ve also been assurred the Reds have no plans to move Montas, and Boston is in the thick of the playoff hunt, so I doubt Pivetta moves. The other names all seem very realistic.

Around MLB:

The Twins destroyed the Tigers, after Royce Lewis went to the 10-day IL, again.

The Rays beat the Royals, even after potential trade target Zack Eflin had a rough day.