Rosario's 4-for-4 performance follows his own trend

CLEVELAND -- Guardians shortstop Amed Rosario hasn’t been with the club for too long, but over the past two years, he’s developed quite a trend -- one that he’s hoping will happen again in 2023.

Rosario has gotten off to a cold start this year, prompting many to wonder if he’d be moved out of his second spot in the lineup until he righted the ship. But through these struggles, Guardians manager Terry Francona insisted that leaving Rosario alone would be the best move and that trusting his track record would benefit the club more than making any hasty decisions. On Tuesday night, Rosario took the first step to proving Francona’s sentiments to be true.

Rosario turned in his second four-hit performance of the season, capped with an RBI triple that helped the Guardians solidify a 2-0 victory over the Tigers at Progressive Field.

“The importance of this game is to stay on the same line,” Rosario said through team interpreter Agustin Rivero. “You’re gonna have a lot of ups and downs, but the important thing is to stay positive on the same line and play the game that way.”

Rosario has experienced plenty of “downs” since the year started. He’s struck out three times in four separate games already this season, when last season he only had one game with more than two strikeouts. Over his previous 36 at-bats before Tuesday, he logged just five hits (a mere .139 average). He certainly didn’t have momentum on his side.

Despite how lost Rosario’s looked at the plate at times this season, Francona continued to reference his track record. Francona likes to talk about looking at a guy’s baseball card at the end of the season and seeing consistency, despite how he may have hit in the first few weeks of the season. So far in Rosario’s time with Cleveland, he’s been exactly that, getting off to slow starts before ending the ‘21 season with a .282 average and .730 OPS and the ‘22 season with a .283 average and .715 OPS.

Francona didn’t want to chance missing that level of production from Rosario again.

“I know if you start playing like lineup bingo, it doesn’t work,” Francona said. “I think there’s times to make changes and things like that, but he’s gonna get his hits. And when he does because of his energy and his baserunning, he ends up being in the middle of us doing good things.”

This is the track record Rosario has set. He’s never been successful early in seasons, especially since arriving in Cleveland. In ‘21, he had a .179 average and .555 OPS in April. In May, he hit .307 with an .808 OPS.

In ‘22, he had a .211 average and .523 OPS in April and a .259 average and .641 OPS in May. In June, he hit .360 with an .887 OPS.

Entering Tuesday night, Rosario had hit just .217 with a .562 OPS this season -- right in line of what he’s done early in the year the past two seasons.

“I mean for me, I think it’s the warmth,” Rosario explained. “I come from a place that’s really warm. … But at the same time, you can’t [put] responsibilities on that thinking that’s the reason. You got to keep playing and see what results come.”

When those results come, the Guardians really benefit. Rosario has been a key piece in Cleveland’s success the past two years and will need to be again this year, especially if the Guardians are committed to giving him playing time over some of the up-and-coming middle infielders in their system like Gabriel Arias, Tyler Freeman or eventually Brayan Rocchio. In games that Rosario had at least two RBIs last year, the Guardians went 18-0. In games that he had at least one RBI, the club went 38-9.

He’s also become a multihit and extra-base hit machine in his time in the Majors. Tuesday’s performance marked his 13th four-plus-hit game since ‘21, which is the most in the Majors in that span. He also has the most triples (34) since 2018. And if he can consistently get on base in front of guys like José Ramírez and Josh Bell, it could be fun for this club to imagine what the offense could turn into. It just needs to actually be put into practice.

Rosario is hoping that Tuesday was the start.

“He’s getting a little bit more of a swagger about him,” said Guardians starter Shane Bieber, who fanned nine and allowed seven hits over six scoreless frames. “He’s a pace setter in that lineup. We go kind of as he goes.”