N&N: At least the only way to beat the Guardians is to destroy Hunter Gaddis

News and notes for May 1, 2024

Hunter Brown entered last night’s game giving up 16.3 hits per 9 innings, and walking 6.1 batters per 9 innings. How does a starting pitcher amass a 9.68 ERA? That’s how.

And in the first inning against the Guardians, those numbers got even worse. He gave up a pair of singles, and then a 3-run homer to Josh Naylor.

And then the Guardians played as bad as any team could play in innings 2-5. They trailed 8-3 after those innings we will refuse to discuss.

A Steven Kwan triple and Andres Gimenez homer in the 6th got Cleveland back in the game. It was Gimi’s first of the season.

Down by 3 in the 6th, Estevan Florial stepped to the plate “needing a big hit,” according to Tom Hamilton who then started talking about kyle Manzardo. Not only did he get a big hit, he tied the game at 8.

Next, they loaded the bases with nobody out in the 7th but couldn’t bring home a single one of those runners.

The score somehow remained 8-8 until David Fry came through in the 10th off of Josh Hader.

That lead was short-lived, though, because both teams get the free Manfred run, and one team had Hunter Gaddis around to blow his third lead in a row, this time to a journeyman catcher. At least the only way to beat us is to walk us off? And Manzardo is banging the door down.

Around baseball

• Mike Trout needs knee surgery. Because I know you wanted even more bad news.
• At Fangraphs, Dan Szymborski signs Josh Naylor to a 4-year contract and projects him for more than 100 home runs over that time.
• Nick Sandlin continues to pitch well.
• The Rockies placed Nolan Jones on the IL (back strain).
• Jose Abreu was shipped out of Houston and they called up a young first baseman named Joey Loperfido who sounds Very Joey Gallo.
• The DBacks had a 2-hour bee delay.