CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Every mistake seems to be magnified for the Cleveland Guardians.
In the field or on the bases, the slightest mistake continues to derail Cleveland’s baseball team.
It happened again Tuesday night as the White Sox scored three in the seventh to rally for a 4-2 victory Tuesday night at Progressive Field.
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1. Logan Allen was dazzling for the first six innings before running into trouble in the seventh. “There's not a lot of wiggle room, but he continues to show not just the poise, but major league pitches,” manager Terry Francona said. “He controlled the running game and the game doesn't speed up very much. There's a lot of good things besides just the pitching.” Andrew Vaugn led the inning off for Chicago with a single followed by a double off the bat of Andrew Benintendi to right. An error by Guardians third baseman Jose Ramirez allowed Yasmani Grandal to reach and Vaughn to score. After Clint Frazier, who pinch hit, walked, Romy Gonzalez doubled to left scoring two more runs for a 4-2 Chicago lead, ending Allen’s night. “[I was] trying to get a cutter in, left it over the middle of the plate. Kind of the same thing with Benintendi. Tried to land a slider there with two strikes, caught a little bit too much of the plate. Those are probably the two pitches that I want back. But all in all, happy with the way I threw the ball today.”
2. Allen’s first mistake came in the top of the fifth when Grandal clubbed a two-out solo home run to the bleachers, his fourth of the season to tie the game at 1.
3. Enyel De Los Santos relieved Allen and struck out the next three hitters to get out of the seventh inning with no further damage. “That was really impressive,” Francona said.
4. Monday night Will Brennan inadvertently killed a bird with a line drive base hit. Tuesday night he killed a baseball and sent it over the center field wall for his second home run of the season and a 1-0 Guardians lead in the bottom of the third. Over his last eight games, Brennan has collected a hit in six of them. “It’s going to definitely build my development and going to allow me to get some experience with facing guys in the Central,” Brennan said. “I know we play them a lot, so it’ll be really good down the line just to get those at-bats underneath my belt.”
5. Josh Naylor doubled to right, scoring Amed Rosario to put the Guardians back on top, 2-1 in the bottom of the sixth.
6. The Guardians ran themselves out of a potential two-out rally in the bottom of the fourth. With runners on first and second, Andres Gimenez singled up the middle, but White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson kept the ball on the infield. Josh Bell, who was on second, ran around third and was easily thrown out at home. Gabriel Arias could’ve also been thrown out at second as he rounded the bag on his way to third. “I was waved home,” Bell said. “I think that just going back and watching the play, Tim came up and looked like he might have gone to first there, but I still think that if he throws up all two first base, it might be bang bang, but I still think he's out. So it’s a tough play.”
7. Arias made a spectacular catch at the wall of a deep fly ball off the bat of White Sox center fielder Louis Robert Jr. to end the top of the first inning. “I think when you put a glove on him, he's very gifted,” Francona said. Allen credited Arias with helping him settle in quickly. “He’s an outstanding player.,” Allen said. “Just the ability to go play any position and go make plays like that. He’s a heck of a player and he is swinging the bat well too. But no, that was a huge [play], got us out of that inning with seven pitches. Probably got the ball rolling for me a little bit to start some quicker endings. So I think that that play was huge.”
8. Gimenez snapped an 0-12 skid by going 2-4 at the plate Tuesday night.
9. The story of the season to date: of the 47 games the Guardians have played, they’ve scored three or fewer runs in 30 of them. They are 8-22 in those games, including 5-9 this month. “Sometimes you got to tip your caps. We've been facing some guys that have pitched us really well,” Bell said. “It seems like that if I looked up and [Jose] Ramirez had 10 home runs, 12 home runs, I wouldn't be surprised. He’s hit a lot of balls on the track. Same thing goes for [Josh] Naylor. I think when I get going, more runs will be scratched across. But in regards to surprise, I think that I talked about in Spring, there's six weeks that you're not really proud of on either side of the ball. I think we've kind of expunged a few of those weeks so far, but I think when the ship is righted, it's going to be a lot of celebration in the dugout.”