N&N: Guardians give up Ten Runs to Minnesota

It wasn’t a fun night for the Guardians in a 10-6 loss to the Minnesota Twins.

I love Xzavion Curry but last night was a reminder that his best path for success is as a reliever. He doesn’t have the stuff to survive a couple very bad strike zone calls by an umpire like Hunter Wendelstedt, and when his location is off as it was Monday night, he’s gonna get crushed. He’s still an excellent human being who has helped keep the Guardians in numerous games this year in the long absences of Shane Bieber, Triston McKenzie and Cal Quantrill.

Speaking of excellent human beings, Daniel Norris also seems like one who is simultaneously a terrible major league pitcher. But, hey, he’s still way more talented at pitching than I’ll ever be at anything.

There were bright signs: Bo Naylor had a two-run homer, Gabriel Arias went 2 for 4 and Ramon Laureano continued to make his case as a Guardians outfielder for the future with a 2 for 4 night. For what it’s worth, Arias has an 89 wRC+ since Amed Rosario was traded, which isn’t great, but it’s at least slightly encouraging and exactly the same as Rosario’s 89 wRC+ for the season (but with much better defense than Amed, of course). The bullpen of Eli Morgan, Enyel De Los Santos, and James Karinchak were able to shut the Twins down after Curry’s and Norris’s poor outings. I will say, though, that Royce Lewis looks like he’s going to be a PROBLEM for the Guardians if he stays healthy.

Josh Naylor will begin a rehab assignment in Akron this week.

Terry Pluto says the Guardians tried hard to trade Amed Rosario in the offseason so they could get a full season look at their shortstops but the market was soft. As opposed to when they traded Rosario for Noah Syndergaard, I suppose. The team also continues to present themselves as shocked by how the shift limitations affected Amed defensively... something that about 15 different Twitter analysts I know predicted, but, you know, who could have seen that coming?

Former Cleveland manager, Pat Corrales, who managed the team from 1983-1987, passed away at the age of 82. Our condolences to his family. Paul Hoynes of cleveland dot com had a good retrospective piece on Corrales.

Around MLB:

One more home run, and Ronald Acuna, Jr. will become the first player in AL/NL history to hit 30 homers and steal 60 bases. He’s very good.

The Mariners and Julio Rodriguez can’t be stopped.

The Brewers have won 9 straight.

Jose Altuve hit for the cycle.