How Bo Naylor has quickly settled in for Cleveland

This story was excerpted from Mandy Bell’s Guardians Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The Guardians have forced a momentum shift back in their favor in the past month. Luck seems to be trending similarly to last season's playoff run, too. Josh Naylor has gotten red-hot. Amed Rosario is picking up more multihit games. And Bo Naylor is finally up in the Majors.

It took some time for Naylor, the club’s No. 3 prospect, as ranked by MLB Pipeline, to get his callup to the big leagues. But after his phone finally rang and he played in his first game on June 18, the Guardians are 10-5. In the last week or two, he’s really started to look like he’s settling in, both offensively and defensively.

Guardians catching and first-base coach Sandy Alomar Jr. spent some time on Sunday chatting about the 23-year-old catcher.

MLB.com: What have you thought about how Bo has transitioned in terms of working with pitchers and trying to get on the same page with all of them?

Alomar Jr.: I think he’s done a fantastic job in that department. I think that [pitching coaches] Carl [Willis], Joe Torres and Rigo Beltran have done a good job in that area. Mostly focusing on the mechanical part, there’s a lot thrown on this kid’s plate, offensively, defensively, mechanically and then especially on game-calling. So, he’s hitting 100%. He’s in all the meetings, he does his homework and he does his own scouting report and then compares it together to see what’s more beneficial for the team. But I think he’s done a great job digesting all of that.

MLB.com: What do you remember about making this transition in your career?

Alomar Jr.: There was a veteran pitcher who played for Boston. He guided me all the way. We went to the meeting ... and then I just followed whatever he told me. We went hitter by hitter, give me a plan and I remembered the plan when we went into the game. I executed whatever we had to do.

MLB.com: How difficult is it for a catcher to learn each pitcher? Is it possible to do without catching every single guy?

Alomar Jr.: Well, with how sophisticated the game is right now, with the ball flight and pitchers' command and spin rate and stuff, everybody has a different way of sequencing pitches. … It’s a little more complicated, but there’s a lot more information out there that a catcher has to digest. They also see instant video -- something we didn’t have in the past, which is very beneficial for a catcher. If I got to see a visual a guy’s swing path and a pitcher’s ball flight, that would’ve helped me a lot.

MLB.com: The play that Bo made in Kansas City, making a 360-degree spin as he caught an errant pitch out before throwing a runner out at second base, was special. What did you take away from that?

Alomar Jr.: One of the strengths that Bo has is that he’s very athletic. He has a lot of mobility through his body. When you have a lot of mobility, it’s good and it’s bad because sometimes you can’t control it. But right now he’s working on how to control your mobility. He kind of reminds me a lot of the catching mobility of Yan Gomes. He has the same ability Yan Gomes has. It’s very impressive to see [a] play like that from a young kid.