Why Joey Cantillo’s rough start against Nationals showcased clear Guardians advantage

On Tuesday, the Cleveland Guardians got yet another suboptimal start from a member of their starting rotation. 

After Tanner Bibee managed to go just three innings in Cleveland’s series opener against the Nationals on Monday, Joey Cantillo managed to give Cleveland just two innings on Tuesday in the Guardians’ 6-3 loss. 

While Cantillo’s suboptimal start is clearly alarming, it did shine a light on just how good Cleveland’s bullpen depth is. 

The Guardians may have the deepest bullpen in baseball

Guardians manager Stephen Vogt was giving one of the worst situations a manager can have after he needed to pull Cantillo. Not only did he have to turn to his bullpen far earlier than he anticipated, but he needed to do so with a 4-0 lead. He couldn’t throw in the towel, but he also needed to eat innings. 

And he combatted that by turning to Codi Heuer, Shawn Armstrong, Colin Holderman and Will Dion, who was making his big league debut. 

Heuer started things off by tossing two scoreless innings before Armstrong and Holderman tossed a scoreless innings each. Dion closed things out with three innings, though he allowed two runs in his final inning of work. 

The Guardians entered play on Tuesday with a 3.62 bullpen ERA, and Tuesday’s game showed exactly why. While Holderman and Armstrong can be high-leverage arms for the Guardians, they’re not Cade Smith or Hunter Gaddis. 

Dion obviously ruined the scoreless streak, but he was working in his third inning of work in his first big league game. 

He’s the latest Cleveland reliever to fill the final spot in the bullpen after they DFA’d Peyton Pallette and briefly recalled Logan Allen to help manage their stretch of playing 13 games in 13 days. 

Allen fell on the sword on Monday by tossing four innings after the game had been decided and was rewarded by being sent down to Triple-A in place of a fresh arm. It may not be a sustainable system, but it’s what the Guardians need to do now as they manage the attrition that’s come with their marathon schedule. 

And it’s not like they’re calling up random relievers. Allen has two seasons with 100+ innings under his belt and both Dion and fellow prospect Franco Aleman (who was called up earlier this year) could fit into the future of the Guardians’ bullpen. 

While Dion, Allen or Aleman won’t impact enough high-leverage spots to become true X-factors in the bullpen, there’s going to be some point in the season where the difference between the Guardians winning or losing a game is going to come down to an outing from a low-leverage reliever. 

It’s a scary thought, but Tuesday’s game shows why it’s not as scary as it could be.

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