CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Triston McKenzie’s second trip to the injured list has forced the Cleveland Guardians to bring up another top pitching prospect to fill a void in their starting rotation.
Top pitching prospect Gavin Williams is set to make his big-league debut Wednesday night against the Oakland A’s.
“I have no words for it, really don't know how to describe it right now, but I guess in the next week or so I'll be able to,” Williams said Tuesday afternoon.
The hard throwing 6-foot-6 Williams, who found out Sunday afternoon he was being called up, ranks 16th on MLB.com’s Top-100 prospects rankings for 2023.
Over 50 family members are expected to be on hand for his debut Wednesday night in Cleveland.
“I’m sure it’s probably the whole state of North Carolina,” Williams said.
The Guardians selected Williams in the first round of the 2021 MLB draft and he quickly moved through Cleveland’s farm system to the majors.
“It’s nice to move up pretty quick, but you don’t really want to look forward,” Williams said. “You want to just stay in the present moment, really be where your feet are. That’s what I’ve been told all through college and that’s what I’ve been doing. Not looking forward too much.”
Over 60 1/3 innings covering 12 starts between Triple-A Columbus and Double-A Akron this season, Williams has collected a 2.39 ERA with 81 strikeouts and 24 walks.
With McKenzie and Cal Quantrill, who is on the IL with a shoulder injury, sidelined with injuries, Williams should get an opportunity to remain in the rotation.
“We didn’t really call him up [for] necessity. If we didn’t think he was kind of in the plans now, we wouldn’t have called him up,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said. “Getting Gavin here is very exciting for us. This start tomorrow, again, I say it every time – it won’t define whether he is going to the Hall of Fame or going back to A-ball, but I think we’re excited to watch him and to watch him grow because he will.”
An MRI revealed that McKenzie has a sprained ulnar collateral ligament in his right arm and is expected to be shut down at minimum for 4-6 weeks. McKenzie is getting a second opinion.
“We always encourage that and they’re working through who and when and things like that,” Francona said. “And there may be a slightly different opinion. We’ll see. But that’s kind of where we are now and when we have more information we will certainly share it.”
McKenzie had just returned from a stay on the 60-day injured list with a teras major muscle strain in his right shoulder. He made two starts before the discomfort and inflammation was felt.
“He’s been unbelievably strong and I asked him the other day, I said, ‘How’s your mom and dad doing? And he says, ‘they're probably taking it harder than me,’ which I fully understand,” Francona said. “He’s been a trooper through this and he will continue to be.”
With McKenzie and Cal Quantrill, who is on the IL with a shoulder injury, sidelined with injuries, Williams should get an opportunity to remain in the rotation.
Quantrill is scheduled to throw 40 pitches in Arizona Wednesday before heading to Columbus for a rehab start.
“We kind of knew he’s feeling really good cause he wanted to come back and just jump into the rotation,” Francona said. “We didn’t think that made a whole lot of sense. So he will go out and make a rehab start on Friday [60 pitches for Columbus] and then we said we’d figure it out from there.”
