Williams' woes in return highlight another hiccup for Cleveland's starters

CLEVELAND -- For all intents and purposes, Wednesday night marked manager Stephen Vogt’s first time watching Gavin Williams pitch.

While Vogt got a chance to do so a couple times in Spring Training, the first-year manager was never able to fully evaluate the 24-year-old before he went down with an elbow injury that kept him out for the first three-plus months of the season.

Williams made a shaky first impression on the mound, as he allowed five runs on seven hits in four sluggish innings in Cleveland’s 8-2 loss to the White Sox on Wednesday night at Progressive Field.

“His command got away from him today,” Vogt said. “He gave up too many 0-2 hits and just [hit] too much of the plate at times.”

Williams’ rough season debut was another hiccup for a Cleveland team that’s in desperate need of strong starting pitching. While the Guardians own the American League’s second best record (53-31), their starting staff entered play on Wednesday having gotten a combined 2.3 fWAR on the season -- the lowest mark in the majors.

And the individual stats don’t look much better, either:

Tanner Bibee: 3.47 ERA, 109 K, 1.09 WHIP in 93 1/3 innings
Logan Allen: 5.75 ERA, 67 K, 1.54 WHIP in 83 innings
Carlos Carrasco: 5.21 ERA, 61 K, 1.36 WHIP in 76 innings
Ben Lively: 3.03 ERA, 61 K, 1.16 WHIP in 71 1/3 innings

Not included in that count is Triston McKenzie, who posted a 5.11 ERA in 75 2/3 innings before being optioned to Triple-A in the corresponding move to activate Williams.

“One of the things we've been most encouraged about with Triston is just how he's feeling overall and the quality of the stuff we've seen,” Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said pregame on Wednesday. “We just need to get him to be more consistent with his pitch execution and the strike zone.”

Outside of McKenzie, the only viable internal option is Matthew Boyd, whom the Guardians signed to a Major League contract at the end of last week. That said, Boyd won’t be able to pitch until sometime in August as he rehabs from Tommy John surgery.

“As we looked at the next two months with a group of players we had here, we thought the group could benefit by bringing in another option from the outside,” Antonetti said.

What another outside option could cost is anyone’s guess.

Entering play on Wednesday, 25 teams either held a playoff spot or were within seven games of a playoff spot, which has led to league-wide uncertainty over which starters could be available.

And, if that wasn’t enough, the Guardians are one of 10-plus contenders who are in the market for starting pitching, which could lead to a bidding war for any available starter.

“Our starting pitching has been inconsistent, so one of our goals is to get more consistency out of the starting rotation,” Antonetti said. “The first way to do that is to help the guys that are here continue to get better and become more consistent. The other is [to look] what external opportunities are there for us to add to the group we have.”

A healthy and effective Williams would go a long way toward helping reinforce the Guardians rotation. Williams flashed his top-tier fastball on Wednesday (it topped out at 98 mph), but struggled with his command.

After giving up one run in the first inning, he settled in during the second and third innings before allowing five hits in the fourth inning, which ended his night after 74 pitches.

After the start, Williams stressed that he had four days to work out the kinks from the start -- a sentiment that was reiterated by Vogt.

“He’s got to get back to executing -- it might take him a couple times -- but he showed some signs,” Vogt said. “His stuff is there. We saw a lot more good than bad.”

For the Guardians to make a deep run in October, they’ll need to see more good than bad from Williams -- even if it means it’ll cause them to make a roster decision at some point down the line.

“If we have too many healthy starting pitchers performing at a high level, I promise you I won't be complaining,” Antonetti said.