News and Notes (Afternoon Version): Guardians Get a Series Win and Five All-Stars

News and Notes for Monday, July 8th, 2024

The Guardians got a big series win against the San Francisco Giants with another crowd of 30K+ on hand on Sunday.

Bo Naylor hit a big three-run homer in the sixth inning off of actual Giant reliever, Sean Hjelle. 6’11”, throws a 96 mph sinker, but hey, don’t throw it THERE to our beloved franchise catcher whom no one need besmirch further after the 116 wRC+ he’s put up since June while maintaining a position with the best framers in the game for framing runs above average:

Carlos Carrasco did just enough to keep the Guardians in the game and the bullpen was nails again. Emmanuel Clase gave up a run in the ninth (!!!) and Angel Martinez air-mailed the throw on an easy play to end the game, but Clase made it irrelevant with four cutters averaging 100 mph to get Brett Wisely to ground out to end the game. Cade Smith, Tim Herrin, Hunter Gaddis and Clase were dominant in this game and we should never take the first half this bullpen has had for granted.

After the game, it was announced that Josh Naylor, David Fry and Emmanuel Clase would be joining Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan as American League All-Stars. The clubhouse was thrilled for them:

The Athletic’s Zack Meisel had a nice write-up about the path each Guardians’ all-star took to get where they are.

Don’t miss our latest episode of Disgusting Baseball Podcast where we have former hitter and college coaching assistant Brent Messett of @DontMessettUp on Twitter on to discuss his opinion of the top three hitting prospects in the draft. Really interesting discussion. The plan is to have Matt Dallas on this pod at the end of the week to discuss six pitchers who have the potential of going at pick 36.

Cleveland.com’s Terry Pluto talked a little bit about the Guardians’ rotation issues. I think the most interesting tidbit was that he says “I know they like Fedde.” Combine that with GM Mike Chernoff insisting that the team isn’t afraid to trade in-division on MLB radio yesterday, and maybe there’s a tiny bit of smoke there.

Around MLB:

The Twins edged out the Astros. The Twins are, unfortunately, quite good and unlikely to go anywhere. The Guardians are gonna have to go out and win this division, don’t expect Minnesota to hand it to them.

The Royals destroyed the Rockies.

The Tigers helpfully pitched Tarik Skubal yesterday and beat the Reds.