News and Notes: Guardians Crush Athletics in Season Opener

News and Notes for Friday, March 29th, 2024

The Cleveland Guardians shut out the Oakland Athletics 8-0 in the first game of the 2024 season, earning manager Stephen Vogt his first win. Shane Bieber looked just as dominant as he had in Spring Training, throwing six scoreless, striking out 11, giving up four hits and one walk. He topped out at 94 mph and flashed an effective changeup

The Athletic’s Zack Meisel wrote about the advent of this changeup in his write-up of last night’s game.

And welcoming back that devestating curveball we all know and love:

This was vintage 2020 Shane Bieber, regardlss of the quality of opponent, and if he can stay healthy, this should be a very exciting conclusion to his time with the Guardians.

The bullpen was solid in relief of Bieber, with scoreless innings from Eli Morgan, Tim Herrin and Nick Sandlin. Sandlin’s stuff, especially, looked quite sharp:

The offense was also very good, featuring DH David Fry who went 3 for 4 with a double

leading a parade of doubles from Tyler Freeman (2 for 4)

Brayan Rocchio (1 for 3 with a walk)

and Josh Naylor (1 for 3 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch). Andres Gimenez stroked a nice single and had a hit by pitch, and Jose Ramirez added a triple late, after beginning his game with a hard line drive to center. A single for Steven Kwan and a walk for Ramon Laureano ensured that all the starters got on base at least once.

This man just SOUNDS like a manager.

Some interesting insights from this and the broadcast: Vogt doesn’t believe in personal catchers so despite speculation to the contrary (from me included) Hedges won’t be Bieber’s personal catcher, and Vogt clearly sees Fry and Freeman as lefty mashers.

The Block Party Oakland fans put on yesterday was amazing:

It’s supposed to rain all day in Oakland but currently is set to clear up in time for the 9:40 EST start, so hopefully we’ll get to see Logan Allen continue the starting pitcher dominance, and maybe get first starts of the year for Will Brennan, Estevan Florial, Bo Naylor and Gabriel Arias.

The Columbus Clippers’ season opener is rained out for today. Maybe we’ll get an announcement of minor league rosters, though, which has yet to be released.

Don’t miss the latest episode of Disgusting Baseball Podcast in which you can meet our newest writer at Covering the Corner, Nicole_W22 who is @Guardians_As on Twitter. Nicole and myself exchanged four hot takes/bold predictions about the 2024 Guardians’ season. Very excited to have Nicole joining our writing team this year!

The Detroit Tigers beat the Twins 1-0 and the Minnesota Twins beat the Royals 4-1. I’ll be very surprised if it isn’t a three-team race for most of the year between the Guardians, Tigers and Twins.

MLB.com’s writers offered some highlights from Opening Day around the league.