Thoughts For A Wednesday Afternoon

 GUARDIANS GAME

Retirement is a blessing and a curse.  While it gives me a chance to watch entire Guardians' games live, it gives me time to watch entire Guardians losses live.  Fair disclaimer, I was doing household chores while I was watching but, whatever, I saw the game.  Here are my thoughts:

• Battenfield - He was hit hard when he was hit.  Truth be told, this is about what I expected out of Battenfield with his stuff.  He is like the Cleveland rookie pitcher of the '80s.  A couple of good outings mingled in with a couple of bad outings and as long as the math showed that there were more good outings than bad outings (I mean, even just one outing above even) we had hope.  But, in our heart of hearts, we knew mediocrity when we saw it because, in the '80s, we saw a lot of it.  So that brings me to Battenfield.  On our minor league depth chart at the beginning of the season the starting pitching looked like this: Espino, Williams, Bibee, Allen, Gaddis, Curry  Battenfield in terms of guys who could help the big league rotation this year.  For him to even have the limited success he has had is a pleasant and welcome surprise.  But we all knew when he came up and we all know now who the first guy sent to the minors will be when Civale OR McKenzie come back: Battenfield.  The point is, if you score zero runs even Shane Bieber can't win a game for you.  But Battenfield has given us all I think he is possible of giving.  With the way our offense has been, however, it is not enough to win games as there is no margin for error.  
• Hysterically, the only 4 hits of the game today were by Freeman (2 - smash that ate up the second baseman, infield chopper), Fry (bloop) and Arias (bunt).  Truth be told,  only Freeman's smash up the middle was hard hit and a good play by Mckinstry would have wiped that one out.  But it shows the depth that the rest of the lineup has fallent to where the rest of the guys were like, 0-21.  
• Speaking of infield choppers, Freeman's was almost a carbon copy of Arias' earlier infield chop.  The difference, in my opinion, in the result was taht Arias wasn't running hard to first base compared to Freeman.  This is something I have seen from Arias.  You know, if you are hitting a buck and a half, maybe you ought to run like your hair is on fire.  Plus, running hard fits with what our players do.  For him to not bust it to first base in that situation is not a good thing, I'm telling you.
• Good to see Fry get some work at catcher. He hit the ball hard in the first inning when he flew out. He handled his one chance at 3B well.  He doesn't look overwhelmed or overmatched.
• Zunino, Zunino, Zunino.  What to do about him?  Part of me wants to release him right now but I think you DFA Gallagher and bring up Naylor and make him the starter against RH starters and make Zunino the backup.  If you lose Gallagher so be it.  We still have Collins at AAA as the backup.  Zunino has certainly been a waste of money with his bad hitting and his even worse defense.  Well, we'll always have him plunking Badoo in the cup to remember.  But, really, time to bring up Naylor and make Zunino the backup catcher that he has so justly earned.

MINORS

• Gavin Williams touched 101 today and at the end of his last (5th) inning was still hitting 98.  Gave up only 2 hits and 2 walks, struck out 10.  He was as dominant as I could ever have imagined him to be so early in the season which he started in AA.  Still has some development to do but he looked really strong today.  Maybe even ML ready for a second division team.  But he should be here soon if he stays healthy and productive.
• Tanner Burns - Didn't see him pitch as I was watching (in silence thanks to MiLB.tv) but his numbers looked good.  Still don't think he is throwing that hard but he has had his good velocity moments.  Maybe we should go Freddy Beene on him and change him to a reliever.  
• Hitters - Not a lot of great news here:  Lampe is a hitter, just a singles hitter at this point.  Naylor and Palacios looked good.  Is there any chance in this world that what we are seeing from Korey Holland is real?  Any chance at all because he looks good and like a professional hitter right now.  
• Rocchio needs to be called up and Arias sent down to play SS every day.  Arias is providing no spark to this team at the moment...and this team needs players who provide a spark.  
• All the other guys who pitched today were organizational guys or guys who really need to break out the rest of this year to avoid becoming or continuing to be organizational guys.

That's it for now.  Time for more adulting.