CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – To say the Cleveland Guardians are off to a slow start would be an understatement.
Coming off a division title last season, the Guardians find themselves below .500 at 15-18 and having dropped five consecutive series entering play Sunday afternoon.
President of baseball operations Chris Antonetti isn’t showing too much concern on May 7.
“I believe it’s a slow start,” Antonetti said prior to Sunday’s series finale with the first place Twins. “I think one of the things that's a hallmark for us is the ability we have to generate runs once we’re on the bases. And we just haven’t yet done a great job of getting on base consistently as we want. So hopefully the more we get on base, the better we’ll be at generating runs, and there have been some situational things this year that we haven’t yet been as good as we were at times in the past.”
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Entering Sunday afternoon’s series finale with the Twins, the Guardians continue to rank near the bottom in several key offensive categories – 29th in batting average, 28th in runs scored, 29th in hits, 30th in total bases, 30th in home runs, 29th in RBI, 30th in slugging percentage and 30th in on-base percentage.
“I do think that's something that will improve over time,” Antonetti said. “We talk about it every year. April and Cleveland can be tough. I think I saw something the other day where we had either the first or second coldest average game time temperature across the league. So obviously in those conditions it's tougher to generate offense, but that's not everything. Obviously, there are things that we need to do to get better. It's not just weather.”
On Friday the Guardians sent struggling outfielder Oscar Gonzalez back to Triple-A Columbus, but right now there is no magic move to be made to turn things around.
“First we just need to help him get every day at-bats and maybe restore some of his confidence,” Antonetti said. “We don’t think we ever expect Oscar to lead the league in walks, but just having more, maybe a more disciplined approach where he understands which pitches he can actually do damage and put in play hard versus which pitches he may not be able to make contact with or just put in play but not do any damage with it.
“So Oscar continues to learn and grow as a young hitter. There are lots of guys who have an initial successful major league opportunity and then they have to make some adjustments back and oftentimes that necessitates going to the minor leagues to figure some of those things out. And so I’m hopeful Oscar can do that and then find his way back here to make a similar impact that he did last year.”
While offensively things have not gone according to plan, the Guardians haven’t skipped much of a beat with their starting pitching thanks to youngsters Logan Allen, Peyton Battenfield and Tanner Bibee providing quality starts,
“It's been really, really fun to see a number of those guys that have come up have pitched really effectively in their early opportunity at the major league level. I think our focus with them is helping them continue on that path and continue their learning and development up here.”
The primary message from Antonetti Sunday morning was simple: the organization is not allowing a sluggish first first five weeks of the season to shake their belief in this young roster.
“We continue to believe in the group of guys that are here,” Antonetti said. “By and large, it’s the same group that proved to be an effective unit last year in finding ways to score runs.”
Rehab updates – Antonetti provided updates on four players rehabbing from injuries in Arizona.
Aaron Civale is headed out to Arizona Sunday evening and he will throw a live batting practice Tuesday with the hope he progresses to a simulated game. Tristen McKenzie traveled to Arizona Saturday. McKenzie will throw a bullpen Tuesday and BP on Thursday. The organization hopes George Valera will be able to move to a minor league affiliate soon as he continues to play in games in Arizona. Cody Morris continues to pitch well in Goodyear.