Naylor notches 2 hits, 3 RBIs to keep up fantastic stretch

PITTSBURGH -- Fans around baseball know that Luis Arraez of the Marlins is chasing an extremely rare .400 season. But what they might not realize is that since the end of May, there’s been a Major Leaguer who has hit for a higher average than Arraez.

Oh, and he’s crushing baseballs, too.

Josh Naylor notched two hits in an eruption of offense by the Guardians on Monday night to snap their first four-game losing streak of the season with an 11-0 win over the Pirates in the series opener at PNC Park.

With a double and a homer vs. Pittsburgh, Naylor raised his batting average since May 30 to .397 -- better than Arraez (.380), the closest qualified hitter in that span.

“It’s fun [to watch him], especially when I have the opportunity to be on deck,” second baseman Andrés Giménez said. “Watching him every night just crush balls, I’m happy for him for the year that he’s having.”

The night didn’t begin so loudly for Naylor or his teammates. Pirates starting pitcher Quinn Priester, who made his Major League debut, didn’t allow the Guardians to put a ball beyond the infield through three innings, inducing eight groundouts and one lineout to shortstop the first time through the lineup.

The Guardians are the only MLB team in the Live Ball Era (since 1920) to go nine-up, nine-down without getting the ball out of the infield through three innings but then scoring a run in every inning after that, according to STATS.

Leadoff hitter Steven Kwan made the first adjustment for Cleveland’s offense to draw a walk to begin the fourth inning, the first baserunner Priester allowed. Then, Amed Rosario took what he learned from seeing four consecutive breaking balls (across two at-bats) to send the fifth a Statcast-projected 408 feet into the Guardians’ bullpen in center field.

Naylor tapped a first-pitch grounder to third his first time facing Priester, then nearly backspun a ball past shortstop in his second at-bat, but Liover Peguero collected it for a nice play.

But as the Guardians went against Priester the third time through, so went Naylor, heating up once again. Following a sixth-inning leadoff single by Rosario and an RBI double by José Ramírez, Naylor stung a sharp liner down the right-field line at 103.2 mph to send Ramírez home, then Naylor trotted home easily on Andrés Giménez’s homer on nearly the exact same line but just over the Clemente Wall to cap the scoring in a four-run inning.

Next came Naylor’s big moment, with two outs in the seventh. Facing reliever Yohan Ramirez, whom the Guardians traded to Pittsburgh last season, Naylor saw a second-pitch sinker from the right-hander that cut from the center of the plate toward the outer edge and fouled it off. He knew he was timed up to get the barrel to the ball, slapping his bat after fouling a ball off, knowing he’d just missed one.

“I hadn’t faced him before,” Naylor said, “so I didn’t know exactly the movement he had on his sinker. So I think that was a good kind of warmup pitch or a good visualization of where the pitch moves to."

Naylor proved a quick learner. Two pitches after that, his bat did the slapping on a sinker in a similar spot. Naylor sent it to the North Side Notch in left-center field -- the deepest part of PNC Park -- for a Statcast-projected 425-foot opposite-field homer.

“You’ve heard me say it so many times: When he drives the ball the other way, he’s so dangerous,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said.

Monday marked Naylor’s 16th game with at least two hits and two RBIs this season, the most in the Majors. The next-closest players on that list? A nine-figure-contract slugger in the Red Sox's Rafael Devers (14), and a player who should command a nine-figure contract soon in the Angels' Shohei Ohtani (15).

Naylor gave a glimpse of his strong potential last season, when he slugged 20 homers en route to a .771 OPS in 122 games. But he began 2023 on a colder note, hitting .226 with a .670 OPS in his first 46 games.

Now, given what Naylor has done in the past 37 games, the question is will he ever cool off?

“I don’t think we’ve even seen … the best of him, because I think there’s more in him,” Francona said. “I’m not saying he’s not doing great, I just think there’s more in there.”