The good, the bad, and the ugly of the Guardians west coast road trip

The Good

First place Cleveland Guardians

Cleveland is 5-2 and currently atop the American League Central. After dropping the first game in Seattle and winning three extra-innings games, this is a fantastic start for the Guardians. Last season the first team to three wins in extras took 22 games (Tampa), while Cleveland only needed seven.

Ideally a team wins half of their games on the road and two-thirds at home in order to get 95 wins at the end of the year. Starting off with a three game cushion in this department gives the team a buffer zone to work with later this season. Having that extra wiggle room from the jump will come in handy when the Guards inevitably have a down series on the road.

Myles Straw's hot start

There was hope that Myles Straw was going to continue being an impact player for Cleveland last year and that simply did not happen. The fact that Straw has eight hits in 30 plate appearances with six walks in addition to scoring six runs and stealing five bases is a great sign. Cleveland will need Straw to be a productive bat in the bottom of the order to put Steven Kwan, Amed Rosario, and Jose Ramirez in position to drive in runs. Continuing to get on base at a high clip while taking advantage of the news rules incentivizing stolen bases should continue to pay dividends for Cleveland.

The Bad

Inconsistent James Karinchak

2023 got off to a bad start for Guardians reliever James Karinchak. Karinchak allowed three runs in his first appearance and was the first pitcher to be penalized by the new pitch clock. Before the season began Karinchak was pegged as someone who could struggle with this new rule, the fact that it came in Game 1 was hardly surprising.

While Karinchak did bounce back with two consecutive scoreless appearances with four strikeouts and two baserunners allowed, a third was not in the cards. Karinchak would come in a 3-3 game in the ninth and it was simply not his day. A leadoff walk to Oakland catcher Ryan Noda would eventually come back to bite him. The Guardians reliever would strike out the next batter and induce a ground ball for the second out, but it was a two-out RBI single from Tony Kemp which hand Cleveland a loss.

The Guardians are going to need Karinchak to be more consistent on the mound. There is still plenty of time for improvment in this area, but maybe some time in lower leverage situations combined with spacing out his appearances could result in more productive outings.

Amed Rosario's performance at the plate

It has not been a good start for Cleveland's number two hitter. Amed Rosario has struck out nine times in 35 plate appearances. This is simply unacceptable. Rosario needs to a lot better than six hits in 33 at-bats if Cleveland is going to repeat as AL Central Champions. Dropping Rosario in the order is not necessarily likely as Terry Francona likes to stick with his guys. It will take a prolonged slump before Tito would even consider moving Rosario out of the two spot, though it would probably be beneficial even if Cleveland's shortstop was firing on all cylinders.

The Ugly

Mike Zunino behind the plate

While Mike Zunino with a bat in his hand has been a welcome sight for Cleveland, it is when he is crouching behind the plate that has been an issue. For several seasons the Guardians have enjoyed elite defense from the catcher position with lackluster offense, this year has seen a massive dropoff in the defensive department.

Through 41 innings there have been seven wild pitches with Zunino behind the plate, that is a wild pitch for just under six innings for Zunino. Last season the combination of Austin Hedges and Luke Maile only totaled 41 for the year (1,353 innings), or one wild pitch for every 33 innings.

Expecting Zunino to turn into an elite defensive catcher is not likely, it would be nice to see him close the gap between where he sits currently and what Cleveland has seen previously.

Zach Plesac's poor season debut

This has been beaten to death, but Zach Plesac was awful in his first start of the season. Plesac was very hittable against an Oakland lineup that is not particularly good. Turning in a Cy Young performance was not the expectation from Plesac, but no one expected batting practice either. It was just one outing and maybe at year's end this is an outlier, however his body of work over the last two seasons suggest to expect relatively uninspiring pitching overall. There will be better performances from Plesac, but plenty that are less than stellar as well.

Josh Bell's lackluster start

With two hits in 29 plate appearances and seven strikeouts, 2023 has not been kind to Josh Bell thus far. When Cleveland signed Bell in free agency to supplement their power production they were expecting more than two singles, one of which would have been a double-play ball if it did not deflect off of Oakland's Adrian Martinez.

This would be less of a concern if Bell has not been in a freefall since being traded to San Diego last season. Bell was pretty much a non-factor for the Padres last year and that continued into this spring. Even though the stats in Arizona mean absolutely nothing, seeing something positive would have alleviated any concerns about Bell. The extended period of struggles is not necessarily providing a lot of faith in his bat at the moment.

Again, this is extremely early and a very small sample size. The fact that Bell does have six walks is a positive and shows that a big time turnaround could be coming. Until that happens it is more than fair to be concerned about exactly what Bell will be able to provide at the plate and at this current time it is not much of anything.