Allen works around traffic to strike out a season-high 9

CLEVELAND -- If there’s any time the Guardians need to see that their starting pitchers are making progress, it’s now. And that’s exactly what lefty Logan Allen proved in the Guardians’ 5-4 victory over the Giants on Saturday at Progressive Field.

Allen worked around a leadoff double in the first, snapping a three-start streak of giving up at least one run. He didn’t get rattled when the second inning started with an error that allowed a runner to reach. All three of his outs in the third came on strikeouts. He then cruised through the fourth inning.

“Good changeup and good breaking ball,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said. “Mixed in his heater when we were sitting a little softer. Good pitch mix.”

Allen came back out for the fifth inning and issued a leadoff walk before recording his ninth strikeout. But after he gave up a single to Heliot Ramos on his 93rd pitch to put runners on first and second, that’s when Guardians manager Stephen Vogt decided that Allen had had enough.

“It’s never easy to take someone out,” Vogt said. “But with where he was pitch-count wise and where they were in the order, I felt like that it was time to go get [Scott] Barlow and stop it right there.”

The lefty was visibly frustrated to not get a chance to finish off the frame, even if he hadn’t thrown more than 93 pitches since May 24 (99).

“I’m a competitor, man,” Allen said. “If I had 150 pitches, I could still get through the fifth. That’s kind of my thought process out there.”

At that point, he had tossed 4 1/3 scoreless innings, and wanted to take care of the runners that he put on base. He clearly had some of his best stuff of the year, recording a season-high nine strikeouts in those 4 1/3 innings of work.

“Everything was working,” Guardians catcher Bo Naylor said. “Just kind of trying to keep them off balance. It’s really as simple as that. Try to keep them off balance, let his stuff work and just get good, clean outs.”

But Allen had to battle through his 4 1/3 innings. Along with his nine strikeouts, he also matched his season high with four walks, which didn’t help keep his pitch count down. However, the biggest takeaway is that Allen didn’t let any of his mistakes interfere with his outing.

“I think it’s just give and take,” Allen said. “You have days where your stuff is good and you’re kind of going for swing and miss. That leads probably to throwing a few more balls out of the zone. But [I'm] happy with the way it turned out. Obviously, probably want a few of those 3-2 walks back [because] at the end of the day, that’s probably the difference in going a little bit deeper in the game.”

It wasn’t until Barlow relieved Allen that the Giants put three runs on the board. Thanks to a Jhonkensy Noel homer in the sixth, the Guardians had just enough breathing room to hold off San Francisco for the rest of the afternoon, even after the Giants added another run on an RBI double off of lefty Sam Hentges in the seventh.

As much as Allen took a step in the right direction on Saturday, his pitch count still limited him to the 4 1/3 innings. The Guardians are in need of length from their rotation. Cleveland entered the day with the fifth fewest innings pitched by their starters in the Majors. Even with the heftier workload, the bullpen has been excellent, owning the best ERA in the big leagues. But to maintain the success this team has had in the first half, it knows that it needs the rotation to help lighten the load.

“I think knowing that [our relievers] have our back doesn’t change the fact that we, as starters, are trying to go deep in the game,” Allen said. “That’s our goal every time out.”

With Triston McKenzie now in Triple-A Columbus, Cleveland is looking to all five of its current starters to help take some of the burden away. Ben Lively and Tanner Bibee have been pretty consistent at doing so. Maybe this is the start for Allen to join them, too.

“I think I was really effective with the offspeed today. Slider, changeup, I moved the fastball around when I needed to,” Allen said. “Bo called a great game, and I was able to execute.”