Luis Ortiz delivered when Guardians needed him most

The beginning of Luis Ortiz's time in a Cleveland Guardians uniform was not particularly great. A forgettable team debut that saw him get rocked in San Diego, followed by a so-so performance in a loss to the Angels, had one of Cleveland's major acquisitions from this past offseason off to a rocky start. That all changed on Saturday night at Progressive Field.

Making his home debut against a Royals team that can give even the best pitchers in baseball headaches, Ortiz was fantastic, shutting down Kansas City with a career-best 10 strikeouts in 5.2 innings of work. This was the level of performance that Cleveland was expecting from Ortiz coming out of the gate, rather than what was seen in his first two starts.

There was one blemish on Ortiz's final line, a solo home run given up to Royals slugger Vinnie Pasquantino. The good news is that was the only hit allowed by Ortiz in the contest and the Guardians' offense was able to pick up the slack and erase the 4th inning deficit pretty much immediately. Cleveland would then go on to score five more runs to give Cleveland more than enough to secure Ortiz's first win in a Guardians uniform, a 6-3 victory over Kansas City.

While the start from Ortiz was impressive, and it is encouraging to see him put together an outing that looked like it was completely out of the question not too long ago, some context is required here. As a team, the Royals have a slash line of .216/.284/.312 with a major league-low seven home runs and just one triple on the year. Kansas City is tied for ninth in doubles (24) and their 116 strikeouts are tied for 11th, but they are also tied with the Minnesota Twins for the fifth-fewest walks on the year (40).

So again, while Ortiz shutting down the Royals is a step in the right direction, it is not like he was dominating the '27 Yankees on Saturday. There is still plenty of work to be done for Ortiz, and hopefully, when he faces a team that is not allergic to offense at the moment, he will be able to put up some respectable and acceptable results.