Pitcher acquired in Josh Naylor deal solid in his Cleveland Guardians debut

The final score of Saturday's contest down in Cincinnati may not have been in the Cleveland Guardians' favor, but there is still a positive to take away from their 4-1 loss to the Reds. The Guardians might have found another viable pitcher for their starting rotation in Slade Cecconi.

Cecconi made his Guardians debut on Saturday and was solid, allowing three runs on five hits while striking out eight and walking none in 5 innings of work. This was exactly what the Guardians were hoping for when they decided to shuffle their rotation a bit following the injury to Ben Lively. This allowed the Guardians to push Luis Ortiz to Sunday when LIvely would have started and have Cecconi slide into the spot previously belonging to Ortiz.

It would have been nice to see Cecconi go deeper into the game and throw more than 77 pitches, but this being his first major league start of the season, it was understandable why they managed his pitching workload in the manner they did. Of his 77 pitches, 52 were strikes, and that is an encouraging development from a Guardians starter.

As mentioned above, Cecconi did not walk a batter on Saturday, and that is a welcome change from what has been seen far too often this season. There have been far too many free passes issued this season from Cleveland's starting rotation, and having another young arm in Cecconi step in for the Guardians' starter who has walked the fewest batters up to this point (Lively has walked 15 batters), could have been a recipe for disaster.

The Guardians acquired Cecconi and a competitive balance draft selection in exchange for slugging first baseman Josh Naylor from the Arizona Diamondbacks this past offseason. So far, the deal has been a little one-sided in Arizona's favor, but Cecconi's first appearance for the Guardians at least shows that both teams may make out well in this deal. It is just going to take a little more time for that to appear genuinely possible.

Cecconi delivering a performance very similar to that of Lively (with a few more strikeouts) should have anyone who has been in panic mode regarding the state of their rotation feeling a little more at ease right now. If Cecconi can maintain or even surpass this level of pitching performance, the Guardians' entire pitching staff, not just the rotation, would be sitting in a pretty good spot moving forward. Hopefully, this will be the first of many solid outings from Cecconi, allowing this team to remain competitive in the AL Central rather than head into the freefall that appeared to be inevitable not that long ago.