Stephen Vogt’s fatal flaw was on full display during Yankees’ sweep of Guardians

Things went from bad to worse in the sixth inning of the Guardians’ loss to the Yankees on Thursday. 

While Parker Messick did just enough to bounce in and out of trouble in the first five innings, his ran into trouble in the sixth after Trent Grisham lined a triple to the right field corner after a successful ABS challenge on a called strike three before coming home to score to go-ahead run on a José Caballero sacrifice fly. 

Messick’s start ended a batter later after he gave up a walk to Jazz Chisholm Jr. 

While that gave the Yankees the lead, the game was still winnable. All the Guardians' bullpen needed to do was hold the line. But, instead of Stephen Vogt calling on one of the big guns in his bullpen, he tasked Matt Festa with cleaning up Messick’s mess. 

He ended up making the mess even worse by surrendering a double to Anthony Volpe (who entered the game with a .190 batting average), a walk to Ali Sánchez (0-for-3 on the season) and a single to Paul Golschmidt. 

By the time the dust cleared, the Yankees had a 6-3 lead and all the life had been sucked out of Progressive Field. 

Although Festa’s outing wasn’t the only reason the Guardians lost to the Yankees, it was part of another frustrating bullpen decision in a series full of them. 

Stephen Vogt's bullpen useage has left a lot to be desired lately

Although any rough outing from Festa is always going to result in some extra consternation among the Guardians’ fanbase, he wasn’t the only Guardians reliever to give a game away. 

On Monday that fell on Hunter Gaddis. Although Gavin Williams turned in five okay innings, Colin Holderman and Tim Herrin pitched well as the first relievers out of the bullpen. 

Then Gaddis entered in the eighth inning and gave up the game-tying run (which likely would have been more if not for Brayan Rocchio’s fantastic double play). 

While Gaddis has been a reliable reliever for the Guardians in the past, he’s clearly not on that level this season, which made it a bit puzzling that Vogt didn’t use Smith in that situation since it was against the heart of the Yankees’ lineup. 

Sure, it wouldn’t have been in the ninth inning, but the 2016 season showed us how dangerous a team can be when it uses its best reliever in a fireman role as opposed to them being a pure binary eighth inning guy. 

Plus, Smith ended up having to work 1 2/3 innings anyway because of Gaddis’ struggles in the eighth. It’s not as egregious of a move as bringing Festa into Wednesday's game, but it’s still one that didn’t age well. 

The next day, Herrin was the GOAT after he surrendered a go-ahead home run to Chisholm in the eighth inning after he had previously worked a scoreless seventh inning. 

Herrin’s can be awesome against lefties (Chisholm said so himself postgame), but his command issues are rearing their head again after last season. If anything, his meltdown added some extra appreciation for Erik Sabrowski, who was fantastic in a setup role before getting injured. 

The Guardians’ bullpen still has a solid 3.77 ERA, but it’s becoming clearer and clearer that they have a middle relief problem. Smith’s been his usual self and Holderman’s been lights out since getting recalled from Triple-A, but there are still plenty of problems around them. 

While part of the reason for that is the arms that Vogt has to use right now, his usage of them wasn’t great against the Yankees. 

Vogt’s clearly a great manager (you don’t win back-to-back Manager of the Year Awards by luck alone), but Cleveland’s series against the Yankees won’t be played in the background during his Hall of Fame speech. 

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