Experience Alan Roden.
It’s unfathomable how quickly a page can turn.
Days ago, we were watching a frustrating and underperforming core that, sub-.500 record notwithstanding, had nevertheless been comprised of roughly the same group that led the franchise to its first postseason victory in almost 20 years. Now, I am getting lineup notifications from the MLB app and wondering if this will be the day that I see Eric Fryer’s name penciled in.
While that’s not strictly the case, the reality isn’t that much better. We have DaShawn Keirsey Jr. and Alan Roden hitting back-to-back, with the latter leading off. Kody Clemens has the highest OPS on the active roster. The bench is literally Ryan Fitzgerald, Mickey Gasper, Austin Martin, and Christian Vazquez.
The starting rotation is the only piece of this team that remained intact after the fire sale to end all fire sales. That means that we’ll be able to see Bailey Ober make his return today, making a comeback from the IL after a sensationally poor June during which the organization downplayed injury concerns at every turn and outright asserted that he was not hurt.
Despite these claims, Ober went 0-5 in five June starts, posting a 9.00 ERA (30 earned runs on 38 hits across 30 innings) and gave up 14 homers, which was double the long balls he’d coughed up in March, April, and May combined.
He’ll face Tanner Bibee for Cleveland, and he will basically be alone in doing so (see: aforementioned lineup considerations.) The Guardians still have some players on their roster, but they’re just a game over .500, still eight back of the Detroit Tigers, and would have to outplay two teams the rest of the way to sneak into the sixth American League playoff spot. They’re also functionally even with the Kansas City Royals. Needless to say, I think we’d all still trade situations with them right now.
GO TWINS GO!