The Cleveland Guardians spoiled Quinn Priester and Endy Rodriguez’s big league debuts on Monday night, blanking the Pittsburgh Pirates, 11-0, at their home, PNC Park.
Amed Rosario, Andres Gimenez, and Josh Naylor hit home runs, and the offense looked like a well-oiled machine for the final six innings.
The first three frames, though?
Priester dominated them by inducing weak contact.
Take a look at this fascinating piece of data by OptaSTATS.
“The @CleGuardians are the only MLB team in the live-ball era (since 1920) to go 9-up, 9-down without getting the ball out of the infield through 3 innings but then score a run in every inning after that,” they tweeted.
The @CleGuardians are the only MLB team in the live-ball era (since 1920) to go 9-up, 9-down without getting the ball out of the infield through 3 innings but then score a run in every inning after that. pic.twitter.com/IPtfml5XI6
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) July 18, 2023
Wow, that’s a very specific stat but goes to show the adjustments the Guardians made on Priester, a top prospect who kept the first nine Guardians to hit at bay and then started to have series issues the second time through the lineup.
That’s actually one of the best ways to see if a rookie pitcher has the stuff to make it in the bigs: judging his performance the second and third time through a lineup.
Cleveland batters had never seen Priester, but once each batter had a first look at him, they did much, much better the second time through.
When all was said and done, the Pirates rookie conceded seven earned runs.
With the win, Cleveland is now 46-48, 1.5 games behind the Minnesota Twins (who lost on Monday).
The race to be the most decent team in the AL Central continues: one of them will make the playoffs and the other one will have to depend on the rest of the American League landscape to see if there is a chance to be one of the Wild Card squads.
NEXT: MLB Insider Reports Guardians Could Deal A Key Starter
