1. Touki Toussaint, thank you for your service! By the skin of your teeth and with one-out help from Xzavion Curry you managed to hold Arizona to 2 runs last night, keeping us in the game. Of course, you walked the last 3 batters you faced which gave you a line of 3.2 IP 3 H 2 ER 5 BB and 2 K. Given that Francona said they were sending you to Columbus at the end of spring training to work on your control and eliminate walks, I don't think that work is done. Of course, those 3 walks at the end were likely the result of you being pushed beyond what you were prepared for, giving us 82 pitches to help save our bullpen that was in a tight spot when McKenzie went down with elbow soreness. Curry saved Francona's bacon there as the latter was hell bent to get you through 4 innings because that was how he drew it up on paper before the game and, damn it, that was how it was going to happen, blowout loss be damned!
2. Goodbye, Mike Zunino. By all accounts you are a great guy, giving of yourself for all sorts of charitable causes. In times like this the fans LOVE t make players like you the whipping boy for all the team's ills. The fact is that the front office of the Cleveland Guardians put you in an impossible situation. They dumped Austin Hedges and signed you, as damaged goods, hoping if they threw you against the wall you just might stick. Then, after doing that, they held onto you and kept playing you for two reasons (1) hoping to justify their mis-investment ($6 million) in you and, eventually, to stall until Bo Naylor was out of Super 2 territory. It's not your fault. With the recovery from your injury, the new rules that prompted more stolen bases and your predisposition to strikeout and empty at bats, you simply stunk this year. The team put you in this position and I am sorry it ended up like this but, frankly, this should have happened a month ago and would have, except for the above. Good luck to you in the future, sir, and I wish you all the best except, of course, when you play the Guardians at which time I hope you will tank it, giving us a chance to win that you never gave us when you were wearing our jersey.l
3. Welcome, Bo Naylor. I am so glad you're here but realize that no one who knows baseball thinks you are going to be the magic piece to this team starting to win like it should. You are simply another piece of the puzzle. Just do your job and with your basic skills you will have plugged a hole in this offense that was gaping. So, just be yourself and give as much as you can. Don't overthink. Don't try to hit 5-run homers. Be a good teammate who gives everything to help the team win.
4. To the Guardians Front Office - Thanks for finally giving us Bo Naylor and finally pulling the plug on the Mike Zunino experience in Cleveland. I will say this, though. If, in fact, you held up on the Naylor promotion until you made sure he wouldn't be a Super 2, you are playing with our emotions and our pocketbooks. I get the Super 2 thing. I get the top 3 in ROY voting. I get all that. But this was NOT the usual case. You didn't have a placeholder keeping the job warm while Naylor was going to finishing school. You had a gaping hole in your offense and defense at catcher that you could have filled and we might have won A LOT more games than we have. Zunino had all these defensive problems in spring training. I know. I was there and when I wasn't I watched games on TV.
So now you have filled that hole that should have been filled much earlier. But now you have more work to do. It is obvious that you have other holes. Rosario at SS is shockingly bad. No way will he bring any more in trade even if he gets hot for a couple of weeks. He is a BAD SS who has proven over the past month or so that he shouldn't be playing. Either bench him or trade him for whatever return you can get. Addition by subtraction. It's time. And if you can dump Rosario, bring up Rocchio. It's time for that, too.
It's also time to send Gabriel Arias to the minors. His being in the majors and continuing to play smacks of Owen Miller last year. How this mistake can be allowed to repeat this year is beyond me. Give Fry a chance in the OF. Bring up Gonzalez. Heck, even bring up Noel. Anything but Arias at this point. Maybe he finds himself in the minors playing SS every day. Maybe not. But he should be doing that in the minors, not the majors.
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