Guardians can't overcome 'pretty big hole' after Bibee struggles

SAN DIEGO -- The recent momentum the Guardians had built came to an abrupt halt on Tuesday night.

Following consecutive series wins against the Astros and Red Sox during their last homestand, which included one of the most thrilling comebacks in recent memory, the Guardians fell 6-3 to the Padres. A bad start to the game put Cleveland in a hole that the team was ultimately not able to dig itself out of.

Tanner Bibee, who entered the game with a 3.05 ERA across his first eight MLB starts, had his worst start in the big leagues. He lasted just four-plus innings and allowed a career-high six earned runs. Bibee, a Mission Viejo, Calif., native who attended Cal State Fullerton some 90 miles up the road, struggled from the get-go.

Consecutive walks to start Bibee’s outing hinted at command problems that lasted throughout his start. Several batters later, Gary Sánchez crushed a first-pitch slider for a three-run homer. Just six batters into the bottom of the first, the Guardians already trailed 4-0.

Things weren’t much better in the bottom of the second inning, when Fernando Tatis Jr. took a 0-1 curveball from Bibee and deposited it a Statcast-projected 405 feet away to center field. After facing 10 batters, Bibee had already allowed more runs than he had in any of his first eight MLB starts.

“I mean, pretty horrible all around, honestly,” Bibee said when asked what went wrong in Tuesday’s outing. “You could pick one [issue], I could pick one.”

Bibee’s biggest problem appeared to be an inability to miss the bats of Padres hitters. Bibee generated just four whiffs on 34 swings against him, good for an 11.8 percent whiff rate that was well below the 25.2 percent mark he had across his first eight starts. His slider and changeup, his best pitches heading into the game, combined to just produce one whiff. When hitters did make contact against Bibee, they did major damage; the average exit velocity on the 17 balls in play against him was 94.1 mph.

“I thought some early pitches were not located well,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said. “He paid the price on the breaking ball to Sánchez that went for a three-run home run. It was just a middle-middle pitch.”

Coupled with Bibee’s struggles was an off night for a Guardians offense that has been on fire recently. Cleveland’s lineup could not figure out Joe Musgrove, who allowed just three runs in six innings. When Musgrove left the game, the Guardians did not fare much better against a Padres bullpen that tossed three scoreless innings.

The Guardians’ offensive performance Tuesday night mirrored their early-season struggles, not the team that has been one of baseball’s best in the month of June. Entering the day, the Guardians' .782 OPS in June ranked fifth in the Majors, and they had scored 50 runs in 10 games. That recent offensive success that helped carry the Guardians to within a few games of first place in the American League Central was absent.

“When you’re going against a good, veteran Major League pitcher in Musgrove and you’re down that early, it’s just a hard way to play,” Francona said. “We had some decent at-bats, but that’s a pretty big hole to dig out of.”

Not all was bad for the Guardians on Tuesday night. Perhaps the biggest piece of welcome news was the return of Cody Morris, who made his first appearance of the 2023 season. Morris started the season on the injured list with a right teres major strain.

After surfacing mainly as a starter for the Guardians late in the 2022 season, Morris made his first appearance of ‘23 out of the bullpen. Morris pitched a 1-2-3 inning, including a strikeout of Xander Bogaerts.

“It was great to be back out there. It felt great. The energy was crazy here tonight,” Morris said. “I’ve been feeling really good for a while now, and I’m happy to be back."

In more welcome news, Josh Bell continued to show signs of life. Bell, who spent the second half of last season with the Padres, homered in his first at-bat back in San Diego. For the first time as a member of the Guardians, Bell has homered in consecutive games.

After scuffling to begin the season, Bell has gone on a power surge in June. With his recent pair of home runs, Bell brought his wRC+ above 100, meaning his overall batting contributions were above the league-average batting line. Bell, who owns a career 115 wRC+, has inched that much closer to the hitter the Guardians thought they were getting.