Slade Cecconi still has long way to go for Guardians after start vs spiraling Tigers

Not much has gone right for Slade Cecconi this season. While the Guardians starter turned in a scoreless outing against the Cubs in his second start of the year, his time since has been marked by rough outings where he's given up runs in bunches. 

That wasn’t the case yesterday, as Cecconi allowed just two runs in 7 1/3 innings in Cleveland’s 8-2 win over the Tigers. 

While the start was a great result compared to how things were going for Cecconi earlier in the year, it doesn’t mean that he’s completely fixed, as his start on Tuesday came against one of the worst offenses in all of baseball. 

Now part of baseball is that you need to pitch against the team in front of you; it’s not like Cecconi wasn’t going to give his all just because he was going against a bad offense. But he’s still going to need to do more to prove this wasn’t a flash in the pan. 

And, to his credit, it seems like he’s on the uptick after his sluggish start. 

Coming into the start, Cecconi had allowed just two runs across his last two starts, though those starts consisted of just 9 1/3 innings due to his inability to go deep into games. 

But he was able to give the Guardians some much-needed length on Tuesday by posting the team’s second-longest start this year behind Parker Messick’s attempt at a no-hitter against the Orioles in April. 

Slade Cecconi is going to need to keep putting together good starts for the Guardians

Part of the reason for Cecconi’s success against Detroit was due to him leaning on his new cutter, which he detailed to reporters after the game, including MLB.com’s Tim Stebbins. He used that cutter more than his cement mixer sweeper (.417 xBA), and the early results were encouraging. 

He settled in after allowing a run in the first inning on a Riley Greene double, but he settled in and didn't allow a baserunner to get past second base until Matt Vierling hit a solo home run in the eighth inning. 

But you can’t recognize those strong results without acknowledging  that it came against a Tigers offense that doesn’t have a hitter with double-digit home runs and is without three mainstays in Kerry Carpenter, Gleyber Torres and Javier Báez. 

Cecconi’s been the odd man out in the Guardians’ rotation this year thanks to strong seasons from his four other rotationmates, but it was also clear that he wasn’t as bad as his 6.56 ERa indicated. 

He’s a bit of a throwback pitcher who pitches to contract, which can spell doom if he’s not locating his pitches. Everyone knows he’s going to attack the zone, and disaster can happen if those pitches linger over the middle of the zone. 

There’s no denying that Cecconi took a huge step by stymieing the Tigers on Monday. But he’s going to need a couple more starts like that to turn us into believers.

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