What We Learned About The Guardians: July 3
What a week for Guardians baseball! A couple of walk-off wins, but also some blowout losses too. In both scenarios, we were able to learn a lot about this team and what we can expect moving forward.
The Whole League Is Sleeping On Andres Gimenez
The fact that Andres Gimenez is not a finalist to be the starting second baseman in Los Angeles for the All-Star Game is silly and ridiculous. It appears that Gimenez thinks so too. After hitting the walk-off home run against the Twins on Thursday, he tilted his head and put it on his hands in a sleeping motion.
Who knows if he was trying to send a message to the league that they aren’t paying enough attention to him, or he was just putting the Twins to bed, but Gimenez has been fabulous this season!
In the month of June, he slashed .326/.402/.512 and had 13 RBI and four home runs. He has also been flashing some leather with some Jeter-like plays in the field. There really isn’t much more to say about it. He is a star and one of the best players the Guardians have!
Small Mistakes Can Hurt Against Good Teams
Last week, the Guardians learned the hard way what happens when you make mistakes against good teams and give them extra chances. They make you pay for it. The Yankees series gave this young team plenty of experiences to learn from.
In the first game of the doubleheader, Jose Ramirez made a costly mental mistake by not cutting off a ball thrown in from the outfield to tag the runner out going to third. This would have ended the inning. Instead, The Yankees poured on two more runs to extend their lead 4-2.
In the series finale, the Guardians had runners at first and third with no outs in the eighth inning. A perfect time to get some insurance runs. But on a ground ball hit by Gabriel Arias, Steven Kwan got caught between third and home and got tagged out. Then Arias wasn’t paying attention and got caught between first and second and was tagged out too. That left Amed Rosario on second with two outs. '
The Yankees almost made the Guardians pay big time for poor baserunning mistake and loaded up the bases in the top of the ninth. Thankfully, Emmanuel Clase got them out of it.
Owen Miller also had a few hiccups in the series too. In game two of Saturday’s doubleheader, he let a ball roll through his legs. Then on Sunday in the ninth, he couldn’t squeeze a ball thrown to first which is what allowed the Yankees to load the bases.
However, it has to be mentioned that Miller also had some beautiful plays in the field last week. He made a jumping catch at first on Thursday and a sliding stop at second on Saturday.
The Bullpen Needs A Jolt Of Energy
There was a time this season when the Guardians’ bullpen was one of the best in the league. But lately, they have just been coasting along. They have the tenth best ERA in baseball with a 3.55.
Eli Morgan has still pitched great, but some teams are starting to figure him out. We saw this in the last two series against the Twins where Morgan has given up a total of five runs and two homers to them.
The bullpen needs some fresh arms. This would take off a lot of pressure on Morgan and Clase to be perfect every time they take the mound.
James Karninchak being back from injury and the club calling up Alex Young might be exactly what they need to get the whole bullpen going again.
The Guardians open a two-series road trip to Detroit and then Kansas City where we will get to see where this team ranks with the rest of the division. Make sure to come back next week to see what we learn about the Cleveland Guardians!
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