Chase DeLauter is inevitable. The Cleveland Guardians may be too. 

Over the past two seasons, the Cleveland Guardians won plenty of games on the back of bunt singles, base-running madness and mistakes from their opponent. It was so prevalent that the Guardians created the nickname of ‘Guards Ball’ to describe it. 

It may have taken Chase DeLauter all of eight games to change what ‘Guards Ball’ looks like. 

While there will probably still be plenty of Guardians games this year that will be defined by defensive misplays and weird things that only seem to happen at Progressive Field, it looks like there’s also going to be more power than we’re used to. 

DeLauter showed exactly what that looks like on Friday when he slugged a mammoth, two-run home run in the seventh inning of the Guardians’ home opener that extended Cleveland’s lead to 4-1. 

In previous years, it always seemed like that at-bat ended with a Guardians scampering around the basepaths while the defenders looked like they were doing a rendition of Yakety Sax. 

But DeLauter took away all that intrigue with a screamer that landed in the right field bleachers. 

Chase DeLauter is providing the Guardians with power they haven’t had in years 

With the home run, DeLauter now has slugged five home runs through his first seven games, making him the fourth player in MLB history to achieve that feat. 

After giving Guardians fans a bit of a teaser of what he can do in his brief cameo last season, DeLauter became one of the biggest stories in baseball when he slugged four homers across the Guardians’ season-opening road trip. 

And he wasted no time making his mark in his first (regular season) appearance at Progressive Field, as he tied the game with an RBI single in the fifth inning before launching his homer in the seventh. 

The ball left his bat at 109 miles per hour and traveled 402 feet. 

After the game, DeLauter said he “wasn’t surprised” by his start. And he really shouldn’t be considering he obviously knows how much power he has. 

But it doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s had to miss so much time over the past three seasons due to injury. Had he not gotten hurt, his big league debut likely would have come at some point last summer, not when the lights were at their brightest in the postseason. 

But he’s making up for lost time, as he’s now tied with The Athletics’ Shea Langeliers for the most home runs in baseball while also leading the American League with a .923 slugging percentage. 

The past half-decade of Guardians’ baseball has been defined by a stunning lack of production from the outfield. Now that’s a thing of the past. ‘Guards Ball’ could be heading in that direction too.