Cal Quantrill may have just solved Guardians’ pitcher conundrum

If you’re the Guardians, what exactly do you do when Triston McKenzie and Aaron Civale come off the jured list in the coming days? Banish Hunter Gaddis to the bullpen? Go with a six-man rotation and use the oft-injured Civale as little as possible? Trade Shane Bieber?

Well, with Cal Quantrill’s performance tonight, he may have answered part of that equation for them. A miserable start to the game led to a whopping eight earned runs in 4.1 innings of work. Seven of those eight runs came in a rough first and second innings. He was left out to there clean up his own mess, however, and ended up pitching a pair of solid innings before the final one scored in the fifth and he was pulled.

All five of Quantrill’s very hittable pitches were hit verily. And while he was bad, no doubt, his defense didn’t help him much, either. Will Brennan had a particularly rough night in right field with multiple misplays.

On the plus side, this game wasn’t a total blowout. The Guardians offense sprang to life in the sixth and seventh inning, plating four runs of their own. Even Andrés Giménez had a pair of hits, skyrocketing his average on the season all the way to .227. Josh Naylor came through with a big bases-loaded double in the seventh, but a general lack of clutch hitting prevented the comeback from being fully realized. José Ramírez was visibly frustrated when he couldn’t come through in his own bases-loaded situation — he would finish the game 1-for-5 with a couple of hard hits.

Cleveland will take their newfound offense into tomorrow with a chance to win their second series in a row.