Guardians lose 5-1 in least surprising loss of the season
Well, they were never going to win a surprise bullpen game with Zac Gallen on the mound anyway, right? Though, to be fair, they probably wouldn’t have fared much better even if Triston McKenzie wasn’t a late scratch — the offense was simply nowhere to be seen tonight. In better news, Bo Naylor arrives tomorrow and is expected to start on Sunday.
As for tonight’s game, it went about as you’d expect. Even in the loss, Touki Toussaint should be proud of what he did on the mound. Pitching in the majors for the first time since last September, he held the Diamondbacks to two runs over 3.2 innings. The control issues that have led to his fall from grace as a 26-year-old showed with five walks, but some fortunate sequencing helped him keep heaps of runs off the board.
Toussaint led with his curveball for 30 of his 82 pitches. He also threw 25 four-seamers, 16 splitters, and 11 sinkers, maxing out at 94.5.
Following Toussaint was Xzavion Curry who performed the same job he has so many times this season — clean-up man. He held down the fort for 1.2 innings but left with the bases loaded in the sixth inning after an intentional walk. Less than ideal, obviously, but between Toussaint and Curry the Guardians ate up almost six full innings and went into the seventh down, 4-1. It could have been much worse.
Offensively, the game was a dud from start to finish. José Ramírez was the only one awake tonight, tallying two hits including a home run — the game’s longest (426 feet) and hardest (106.7 mph) hit ball for either team. Josh Naylor was blanked, ending his hitting streak at 14 games, but he almost got to No. 15 in the top of the ninth. If Scott McGough had a half-second slower reaction time, the ball might have squeaked by him and past the infielders, but instead, it hit his glove and made for an easy toss to first. David Fry got another hit to follow up his two-hit performance last night, so that’s fun.
Is Bo here yet?
Source: Covering The Corner
