Boyd becoming indispensable after another gem

CLEVELAND -- While Matthew Boyd ended up taking the loss in the Guardians’ 3-0 defeat to the Pirates at Progressive Field on Saturday, it was another step in the right direction for a man who’s quickly becoming one of the most important players on manager Stephen Vogt’s roster.

Boyd turned in arguably his best start of the year, as he scattered four hits and one earned run over six innings along with a season-high eight strikeouts.

"He was outstanding,” Vogt said. “He made the pitches he needed to and went deep in the game. It was everything we could have asked for him and more.”

The Pirates’ lone run against Boyd came in the fourth inning when Nick Gonzales ambushed him with a leadoff double before he scored a batter later on a bloop single from Andrew McCutchen that had an expected batting average of .280.

But, in a sequence emblematic of Boyd’s steady presence this month, he was able to get the speedy Oneil Cruz to ground into a 4-6-3 double play a batter later to end the threat. McCutchen would be the last baserunner he’d allow before departing.

“You’ve just gotta keep making your pitches,” Boyd said.

He threw all five of his pitches and relied primarily on his fastball (36% usage) and changeup (27%). He generated 10 whiffs with the changeup and five with his slider.

“It’s getting better,” Boyd said. “I feel like I’m growing after each outing and getting in more of a rhythm.”

The bad news for Boyd was that the Guardians’ bats had trouble creating anything against Pittsburgh starter Luis L. Ortiz, who allowed just one hit over six innings of work. Cleveland’s lone hit against Ortiz came in the fifth inning when Bo Naylor hit a grounder that deflected off the glove of first baseman Connor Joe and skittered into right field.

The Pirates’ next best chance to score came in the seventh inning when they loaded the bases with two outs off Nick Sandlin, but Pedro Avila came in and shut the door by getting Henry Davis to fly out to center.

Things didn’t go as well for Avila and the bullpen the next inning, however. After two Pirates reached against Avila, Vogt elected to go to Tim Herrin in the hopes the lefty matchup specialist would be able to get Cruz to end the inning. Instead, Cruz lined a ball 83 mph off Herrin’s throwing elbow that resulted in Herrin leaving the game.

Herrin was replaced by Eli Morgan, who gave up a two-run single to Rowdy Tellez.

Herrin was diagnosed with a left triceps contusion, but neither he nor Vogt think the injury will be anything serious.

“We’ll re-evaluate him in the morning, but it looks like we got lucky. It kind of hit him in the tricep,” Vogt said.

After the game, Herrin said that he thought he was going to be fine and that his triceps would just be a little bruised.

Any serious injury to Herrin would be a huge blow to a Guardians bullpen that has the best ERA in baseball (2.82). While Herrin is lights-out against left-handed hitters (.117 batting average against), he’s also adept at getting right-handed batters out (.207 batting average against). His 63 appearances are tied for the second most for the Guardians this year.

The Guardians had a golden opportunity to tie the game in the bottom of the seventh inning when they had runners on first and second with one out, but Josh Naylor ran into an inning-ending double play on a flyout from Lane Thomas that would have been a home run in 11 of 30 MLB parks.

“It looked like he read it like it was going to go off the wall,” Vogt said. “Unfortunate read.”

The loss closes out a 12-17 month that’s resulted in Cleveland’s lead in the AL Central shrinking to 2 1/2 games after they opened the month with a six-game lead. While the Guardians aren’t happy with how the last month has gone, Boyd and his teammates know that they have all of Northeast Ohio behind them as they enter the most important month of the season.

“Getting to experience a postseason push with Seattle in 2022 was invigorating, and to walk out before the game and see that energy was awesome,” Boyd said. “We all feel it. We’re really excited for what’s next.”