CLEVELAND, Ohio — Carlos Carrasco did something Thursday in Boston that he had not done since Sept. 20 of 2020, he won a game in a Cleveland uniform. Four years later, Carrasco gutted through 5 2/3 innings and allowed only one run against the Red Sox. He now has 89 of his 108 career victories with Cleveland.
On Friday’s podcast, Paul Hoynes and Joe Noga look back at Cookie’s latest win and what it means for the first-place Guardians moving forward.
Listen and read along with an AI-generated transcript of the podcast below.
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Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.
Joe Noga (00:15):
Welcome back to the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast. I’m Joe Noga, joined by Paul Hos, the Guardians get out of Boston taking three out of four at Fenway Park. First time in almost 25 years they’ve won three games in a trip to Fenway and Carlos Carrasco comes up with his first win for Cleveland since September of 2020. His first victory of the season, the guardians did it with some two out clutch hits and then basically hanging on for dear life in a rainstorm at the end.
Paul Hoynes (00:52):
Joe, I love the way Rasco bounced back after that first inning. What he throws 29 pitches in the first inning faces seven guys gives up one run, leaves the bases loaded, and then really kind of pitch. Well, I thought his velo looked like it picked up. His breaking ball was good and he gets into the six innings, so that was encouraging.
Joe Noga (01:16):
Yeah, he said afterwards that he went after that first inning, he went back to what was working for him in the bullpen. During warmups. He said he just wanted to attack hitters and you could tell this is a Boston lineup that you could attack, that you could go after, and he did that and his stuff played well and it got him basically one out shy of completing six innings. Cade Smith comes in and after a two out single by Reese McGuire and a base hit and a triple later and it’s, oh, everything’s starting to tighten up on these guys. And then Kate Smith box in a run for the second time in two games in Boston. What’s going on with the box here? Hoey?
Paul Hoynes (02:04):
Yeah, Joe. Well, the one against Lively, we still don’t really know what happened. That’s in the UFO files. We probably won’t find out about that for 50 years until they unseal it, but the one against Cade Smith, he caught his cleat and just kind of stumbled during his motion, so that was pretty easy to see. But the lively block is still under investigation by the FBI from my sources are telling me.
Joe Noga (02:34):
Yeah, the explanation that Steven Vogue got was about having to declare whether you were going to go from the windup or not, and whether Lively did that or he didn’t, that’s who knows. But ultimately that didn’t matter because Tanner Hawk was so good on Wednesday night that it really didn’t matter, but Cade Smith gives up his first runs in his rookie season on that jar Duran Triple. You can’t hit a ball any better at Fenway Park than the way Darren Jaron Duran hit that. He hit it right to the point in the triangle, 420 feet away from home plate and it got there in a hurry.
Paul Hoynes (03:16):
You’re not kidding, and that guy can run, man. He was flying around the bases. Just a good piece of hitting and I think you like Cade Smith, but if he’s just going to throw heat all the time, Joe, he’s going to get hit like that sometimes.
Joe Noga (03:32):
And to this point, it hasn’t hurt him. It hasn’t caught up to him, but again, it’s a young, inexperienced in a lot of ways bullpen and they’re going to have stumbles there. You hope that they don’t give up four run leads and in this case they didn’t. They held on Emmanuel Class A came in after Tim Heron and Hunter Gaddis pitched the seventh and eighth innings and were excellent. I mean, Heron two strikeouts, Gaddis with a punch out and then Class A came in and 1, 2, 3, he had his fifth save of the year.
Paul Hoynes (04:09):
Yeah, it was really encouraging to see those three guys at the tail end of the pen, especially class A Joey, he had failed to convert his last two save opportunities and he was not messing around yesterday. He just came in there and blew Boston away. That was good to see. I mean a good catch right by Ra, is that how you say the kid’s
Joe Noga (04:33):
Name? Yeah,
Paul Hoynes (04:35):
Raphaella lined out to a right field. Loriano made a nice running catch and that seemed to settle him down Class A I’m referring to, and he got the next two guys. I think that was a big step for him.
Joe Noga (04:49):
Yeah, second best road record in baseball right now behind Milwaukee. The guardians are 10 and three best in the al on the road away from home, and that’s how they have built this lead in the division is by winning those road games and basically winning the games that they’re supposed to win. At this point, Boston not a team, especially with Tyler O’Neill out with a concussion. This is a team that didn’t have a lot of pop. You probably should have won all those games in Boston except for running into the buzz saw again on Wednesday with Tanner hok, but you’re getting contributions at least in the last four games, up and down the lineup from the top of the lineup to the bottom. Everybody’s connected and contributing. Gabriel Arias is swinging a hot bat right now for Steven Vote and it’s vote’s job to make sure he tries to keep him in the lineup.
Paul Hoynes (05:50):
Yeah, well he started at third base yesterday. He was in center field the night before. I mean, Joe, this guy, they’re just going to play him anywhere I guess, as long as he keeps hitting, so I don’t know if he can catch, but we might see him behind a plate. One of these types.
Joe Noga (06:05):
Well, I mean he’s got a pretty powerful arm and you don’t know if he’s the pitching type, but I would be interested to see if he could play all nine positions at one point during the season. There’s no way they’ve got enough catchers in that dugout to not have to put me on the plate. I don’t think it’d be more interesting if you put him on the mound as a position player pitching to see just how his arm would play. But you’re right, this is a guy, he’s basically, he’s a freak athlete and they need to keep him out there batting 400 over his last five games with a seven 50 slugging percentage, an 1179 OPS, eight hits in his last 20 at bats, a home run for rbis, two doubles for Gabriel Arias, just all around a good series and coming off a pretty solid weekend against the Yankees before that, so look to see if he’s back in there at some point against the, a’s this weekend, one guy who got a day off for Cleveland yesterday, his first day off actually, he went what? 18 straight games with Steven Kwan at the top of your lineup and Kwan got the day off. Steven Votes said he wanted him to just reset, unplug, just sort of get everything out of his mind and sit out. I mean, the guy’s hitting out of his mind, he’s how many three hit games. It’s been a really fun first 18 games of the season for Stephen Kwan. Just what’d you think about giving him a day off of his feet there? The last game in Boston?
Paul Hoynes (07:54):
Yeah, I thought it was a good move. Like you said, Joe, he’s played 18 games. He’s hitting 3 54 29 for 82, 2 doubles, two home runs, five rbis. He’s scored 18 runs. He’s played great in left field, so he deserved a day off and it doesn’t hurt you much when you can put Andre EZ up there in the lead off spot and he gets what he drives. He gets two hits and drives in two runs, so that’s, that’s a good combination if you want to give Qua a day off.
Joe Noga (08:26):
Yeah, well, after the game, Steven Vote was asked about Andre Jimenez being adaptable, finding success anywhere you put him in the lineup and vote, basically said, Hey, he’s our Swiss Army knife. He’s the guy who can get hits anywhere in the lineup. You bat him second, you bat him a little lower down the lineup when there’s a lefty on the mound and if he needs to move into the lead off spot, he’s a guy who can get you some bases as the first two out, RBI single that he had in the game yesterday, tried to stretch it into a double, probably not the best idea. It was everybody’s holding their breath as he goes in headfirst with that throw coming in from left field and a bit of a collision there, but he seemed to be no worse for the wear.
Paul Hoynes (09:18):
Yeah, he has some Josh nailer in him, Joe, those
Joe Noga (09:24):
Two a little reckless.
Paul Hoynes (09:26):
You just never know what they’re going to do on the bases and even at the plate, him Jimenez will dropped down a button when you least expected and I don’t know, I would imagine they don’t expect that in the Cleveland’s dugout either, so they’re the kind of exciting guys to watch
Joe Noga (09:43):
And I don’t even know if you very much appreciate it him doing that. I mean, you’re talking about a guy who’s what, he’s batting 500 with runners in scoring position and there’s guys on base and he’s looking at square up and bunt. I don’t know if you necessarily want to see that if you’re Steven Vote or Craig Alvarez in the Guardians dugout, but you can’t argue with the results and you can’t argue with the defense that he plays. Again, yesterday we saw a couple examples of it and he did commit an error though, and a couple of people in the Boston press box were kind of looking around after he committed a pretty routine ground ball error and they said, oh, this is the guy who won the platinum glove. And I’m like, I kind of had to stick up for him and defend him. I’m like, yeah, but he saves you way more runs than a simple era like that where the next guy grounded out. Anyways, it is still really interesting to see how underappreciated he still is even though he’s a platinum glove winner.
Paul Hoynes (10:51):
Yeah, it was such a miserable day too, Joe. I felt bad for you guys. I mean it looked like September, not April, the middle of April. I mean, and it love what, 47 degrees? It was raining. The Red Sox kicked the ball around for all four games. I don’t know how many errors they made, but that’s not a very good defensive team.
Joe Noga (11:13):
They are the worst defensive team in baseball and probably one of the worst defensive teams I’ve seen in a while. I remember a couple of game stretch where we saw the White Sox with Tim Anderson last season kicking the ball around, and I thought that was the worst defense I’ve ever seen. This was right up there. This was pretty bad just the last couple of days in Boston. But yeah, I felt like I got the full Boston experience getting out of there on Thursday 47 degrees and raining in April as opposed to when I arrived on Monday and it was sunny and 60 and I thought, this is not how Boston’s supposed to be in April. I was a little surprised and the weather was great the first three days and then everything sort of went in the trash can on Thursday.
Paul Hoynes (12:03):
Yeah, I was there once for a hurricane and the hurricane kept coming over the ballpark. It kept circling and storms kept circling back over Fenway Park. They didn’t end the game until about two in the morning. It was crazy.
Joe Noga (12:20):
You were there for a hurricane. They sold you seats and popcorn and everything. Once I went to Boston for a hurricane.
Paul Hoynes (12:27):
Oh great. I think it was Hurricane Bob. I don’t know what year that was, but I kind remember
Joe Noga (12:31):
That Hurricane Hoey in the press box. We love it. All right, let’s turn our attention to this series against the a’s. The A’s since we last saw them are playing much better. Do you think it has anything to do with resolving the issues about next year? After Cleveland left, they announced that they’re going to play in Sacramento until what, 2027? I believe with an option for 2028 if their park’s not ready in Las Vegas, but that means that’s at least a worry that’s not in the back of their heads. They’re not thinking about that, that the team can focus a little bit more and what they’re six and tens since Cleveland saw them last?
Paul Hoynes (13:21):
Yeah, they’ve won six of the last 10 games, Joe, they, and you’re right, they are playing a little better on the road than at home, either four and nine at the Coliseum and four and two on the road. I think they’re like since Cleveland left, Cleveland took three of the season opening four game series from Oakland. They are seven and eight, so they’re playing a little better. I think they’ve kind of taken that us against the world attitude that if you just got to play, it doesn’t matter. You are what city you’re playing in. Just play as well as you can. And I think that attitude is starting to work for ‘em. So I don’t think Cleveland should not look past the a’s. This could be an interesting weekend series
Joe Noga (14:18):
And they’re probably just young enough to not know what they don’t know and go out there and if they’re finding success since then, there might be some guys that could hurt you and do some damage. The first guy tasked with dealing with these guys is going to be Tristan McKenzie. He did not face Oakland in that opening series to start the season. His first start came in Seattle. So the a’s haven’t seen Mackenzie, and to be honest, Mackenzie, it’s been a struggle so far early in the year, reports by the athletic this week indicate that he’s admitting that he’s pitching with a torn ligament in his elbow. He’s trying to avoid surgery and trying to pitch through that, but so far the fastball command hasn’t been there. The velocity obviously isn’t going to be there, and his game right now is dependent on pitching through batters instead of just blowing away with stuff.
Paul Hoynes (15:27):
Joe, his line in 13 innings over three starts, he’s given up nine earned runs, 11 hits, but here are the two stats that really jump out at you. 12 walks five strikeouts in his last start against the Yankees. The last time out he went four innings walk six struck out one, and that’s not the Tristan McKenzie that we have come to know when he’s healthy. We didn’t see that version of Tristan last season much. He only made four starts, but the year before in 2022, his last full season, this is a guy that strikes people out that got control of the strike zone and we just haven’t seen that guy. And Joey’s still not giving up a lot of hits. Batting average against is only two 20.
Joe Noga (16:22):
Yeah, but you go back to he did leave a ball what belt high over the middle of the plate to Juan Soto that I think still hasn’t landed the last time he faced the Yankees as his last start. So you just got to these command issues. This is part of sort of pitching through this injury. If he’s going to do that, how long do you go with a guy if he’s not going to be successful in this regard and basically have to have a meeting with him and say, Hey, look, I know you can pitch like this, but really should you pitch like this?
Paul Hoynes (17:01):
Yeah, Joe, it seems like what is velo right now on the fastball is 90.9 miles an hour. That’s a drop from his last healthy season 2022. The velo was 92.5. We talked about this last year with Bieber. And the same thing is happening here with Tristan McKenzie. I don’t know if they’re just waiting until push comes to shove here and they’ve got to make a decision, but it seems like it’s getting pretty close here, Joe, if McKenzie doesn’t turn the corner here in the next two or three starts, I think you have to start looking at options and you’ve got options in Ben Lively and Curry.
Joe Noga (17:45):
Well, yeah, and that’s the other thing is this past series in Boston sort of showed both Curry and Lively came out and gave you five innings in their first starts of the season. Curry only allowing what two hits and five shutout innings looked as good as we’ve ever seen. Xavier Curry, Ben Lively, we hadn’t seen much of him. And for him to go out there and strike out seven and just the attitude and the approach, I mean he went through Boston like a buzz saw, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Tanner Houck was spinning a Maddox on the other side, Ben Lively might have been in line for a win. But in some other cases, I don’t know. I don’t have the answers in terms of Tristan’s elbow. I know that the Guardian’s clubhouse and that team is a better team with him around and when he’s contributing they’re even better. But I think if Tristan had had the surgery when this injury first popped up, we’d be talking about he’s only three or four months away at this point instead of, well, you’re facing a year plus of recovery time moving forward now instead whenever the inevitable, I think it just feels like this is heading down that road.
Paul Hoynes (19:12):
Yeah, well you can’t make a guy have surgery. I mean if he wants to rehab, you got to give him a chance and that’s what Cleveland is doing and he’s doing it on the biggest stage in baseball too, so every time he goes out there. So it is a tough situation and hopefully for Tristan’s sake, he turns the corner here.
Joe Noga (19:34):
Well, and how much of it is the guardian’s probably willing to let Tristan go out there and pitch through this as much as he could at the start of the season? Because I don’t think the expectations were that they were going to start as hot as they were and come out the gate at 13 and six and be a top the division. I don’t think anybody anticipated that. But if they keep winning, how much longer can it actually has to shrink the window with Mackenzie, doesn’t it?
Paul Hoynes (20:04):
Yeah, I would think that’s definitely a consideration, but I’m not sure. I’m not sure exactly what their plan is. I just remember what Chris Antoinette, he said when he came back last season at the end of last season, Mackenzie, I’m talking about and he said we’re going to see how he handles the stress of big league games and I guess they’re still under the evaluation process.
Joe Noga (20:30):
Well first step here tonight and see how he comes out against a team where he should be able to have some success depending on how he was feeling. The weather conditions aren’t going to be outstanding, cold and damp a little bit, probably around game time, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that. Zi, that’s all I got for today’s podcast. We will check back in with you again next week. We have an off day on Monday, so we’ll talk to you then. Good deal, Joe.
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