News and Notes: Guardians Homer, Win

News and Notes for Monday, September 2nd, 2024

The Guardians rode a dominant start from Alex Cobb and home runs from Andres Gimenez, Kyle Manzardo (2) and Jose Ramirez to a 6-1 victory over the Pirates on Sunday.

Not to bury the lede, but Alex Cobb was perfect through six and had only thrown 73 pitches before he faced Isiah Kiner-Filefa who lined a 102 mph grounder off his leg (?). Cobb stayed in to give up a single to Bryan Reynolds and then gave way to the Guardians bullpen which shut the Pirates down (a poor Hedges throw to second allowed the only run in the 7th). Cobb had 11 groundball outs, six strikeouts and a pop-up in his six perfect frames. That return from injury could not have gone any better and he’s putting himself in conversations to start game one of a playoff series with outings like this.

Meanwhile, Kyle Manzardo, who was obviously INCAPABLE of being added to the roster prior to the September 1st expansion, finally arrived and showed off his Eric Longehagen graded 40-grade in-game power, homering twice off right-handed pitching:

Man, too bad Manzardo wasn’t available for a call-up while we saw the Guardians struggle for two months against RHP while trying to solve it with fringe utility players. That would have been stupid. Wait, I’m hearing reports that he was, in fact, available? Weird.

Meanwhile, Jose Ramirez is now six homers and six stolen bases short of a 40/40 season and he’s got 25 games to do it.

Andres Gimenez also homered and Lane Thomas had three hits, in “turning their hitting around” news. Brayan Rocchio had two hits but also a grounded into a double-play and made a sloppy play at short in “continuing to be the fanbase’s player they love to hate” news.

Jason Lloyd wrote about how Gavin Williams may be tipping his fastball for the Athletic.

Because today is Labor Day, I’m giving myself a pass on writing our series preview for the Royals series, but it’s a big one. Here are your matchups and game times:

Monday, 4:10PM EST: Gavin Williams, RHP vs. Michael Wacha, RHP

Tuesday, 7:40PM EST: Tanner Bibee, RHP vs. Brady Singer, RHP

Wednesday, 7:40PM EST: Ben Lively, RHP vs. Seth Lugo, RHP

Around MLB:

The Twins won and the Royals lost.