Sweet relief: Guardians 'pen bands together to hold O's at bay

CLEVELAND -- The Guardians had a big hole to fill on Thursday with starter Tanner Bibee, who’s put together an impressive Rookie of the Year case, now on the sidelines. Aside from one hiccup, the pitching staff was able to get the job done.

The Guardians avoided being eliminated from postseason contention for at least one more game with a 5-2 victory over the Orioles at Progressive Field. Starter Hunter Gaddis, who was expected to throw around 60 pitches coming into the outing, set the tone, allowing just one hit in three frames. And after three scoreless innings combined between Eli Morgan and Sam Hentges, the Guardians turned the ball over to Reynaldo López, Trevor Stephan and Emmanuel Clase.

The performances from the final trio of relievers were the epitomes of each of their last months. Let’s take a deeper look.

Reynaldo López
López was one of the last-minute waiver claims before the calendar flipped to September that the Guardians hoped would help the team make one final push to catch the first-place Twins. While it’s all but guaranteed Cleveland won’t pull off the ultimate comeback, López has done everything in his power to keep the Guardians in the win column.

With his scoreless frame in the series opener against the Orioles, López still has not allowed a run since he joined Cleveland (nine appearances spanning eight innings). He averages 98.2 mph on his fastball and has a 39.5% whiff rate on his slider.

“I think [pitching coach] Carl [Willis] wants to adopt him,” Guardians manager Terry Francona joked. “We enjoy him. He’s quiet, he likes to pitch, he looks you in the eye when you talk to him and throws real hard and has a nice little offspeed. He’s good.”

López is an intriguing arm that certainly could be a nice addition to this bullpen beyond 2023. However, he’s set to be a free agent this offseason and the Guardians are rarely active on the free agent market. López was signed to a one-year, $3.63 million deal for ‘23. If the Guardians can keep him around that number, and the team continues to be intrigued by what he brings to the table over the last eight games, maybe a reunion with the reliever isn’t off the table.

Trevor Stephan
The eighth inning has been a rough one for the Guardians this season. Over the past month, a lot of those moments have fallen on Stephan’s shoulders.

It was no different Thursday, when he blew a 2-0 lead on a single, two doubles and an RBI groundout and exited the game after the eighth inning with the score tied. In eight appearances in September, Stephan has pitched to a 13.50 ERA, allowing 11 earned runs in just 7 1/3 innings.

“[Stephan's] getting himself into a hole, and then he got into a 3-1 count. I think he was trying to come up and in and just left it over the middle to [Adley] Rutschman,” Francona said. “Just going through a little bit of a tough stretch.”

Stephan was lights-out for the Guardians in 2022 and at times in ‘23. But the consistency hasn’t been the same this year as it was last, leaving questions about whether he’ll remain the eighth-inning man in ‘24.

Emmanuel Clase
López has been excellent. Stephan has struggled. Clase is somewhere in the middle.

The closer has had one of the more complicated seasons of anyone on the roster, considering he leads the Majors in saves (42, matching last year’s total), while also leading the league in blown saves (11). While he’s had six saves already this month, he’s also tallied two blown saves in that 10-game span.

With a three-run lead in the ninth on Thursday, he allowed two runners to reach base but prevented all from scoring to secure his 42nd save. It’s clear that what made him so dominant in 2022 is still there, but something has changed to allow him to be more predictable or more hittable for opponents this season. If he can go into the offseason with a solid plan on how to just slightly right the ship, there’s no reason for the Guardians to think he can’t continue to be their closer for the foreseeable future.

With back-to-back 42-save seasons, it’d be hard to argue otherwise.

“He’s awesome,” Gaddis said. “I wish I had that 100 mph cutter. That’d be sick.”