Fisher loses Ownership Rights Of A’s to The Cleveland Guardians.
Welp, as you probably predicted, the Guardians are 16-6 and the winningest team in the Majors. Stephen Vogt has made an absolute mess of his previous employer this year, winning the season series 6 to 1. Josh Naylor is just as psychotic as expected, hitting the shit out of baseballs and his own noggin. Steven Kwan records four hits in one game. The Kinderguardians are firing on all cylinders and have been for 4 weeks. Is this ACTUALLY sustainable?
MOTY Vogt-ing
We obviously didn’t know what to expect on the managing front. I think we were all excited but curious what could happen when replacing a hall of fame manager with a rookie manager that retired just two years ago. The lineup construction, match-up mentality, and fire in the dugout has proven to me that the front office made the best choice. Vogt does everything that Tito wouldn’t do. I have ZERO bad to say about Tito, but the guy was loyal to a fault. Miles Straw was gone immediately, Vogt developed a lineup for lefties and righties and has been implementing them flawlessly. The “one day at a time” mentality when crafting the lineup card has proven to be extremely effective so far and with Manzardo starting to get hot in the minors, I can only imagine the excitement of adding that name to the card relatively soon.
Josh Naylor is an Absolute Unit
Every day that goes by, the people of Cleveland wake up and look themselves in the eye in the bathroom mirror. We stare at ourselves with utter disgust and ask “Why did we not lock him down this offseason?” It’s a simple answer really. Because it costs money. But holy shit is this guy taking the league by storm. Over three games against Oakland, Josh Naylor tallied 7 RBIs and 2 bing bongs. The guy steps to the plate with so much attitude it buzzes through my body like the static on a shitty tv. Every cut he takes causes his helmet to seemingly jump out of the way and on to the ground, scared to get any piece of the force he is putting into the ball. His blood runs ice-cold and no moment is too big. He has officially played way too well to spend more than his guaranteed time in Cleveland. Does that mean I won’t be begging every god I can think of for an extension? Absolutely not.
King Kwan Reigns Supreme
If I was granted three wishes by a genie, I am embarrassed to tell you that two of those wishes would involve extending Guardians players. Kwan is the other one of them. Over the 3 games in Oakland, Kwan hit 3 doubles and had a four hit game in the 6-3 win on Saturday. The electricity that runs through the top of this lineup is beautiful and considering we are 28th in the league in runs contribute by the long ball, we have finally figured out how to score runs consistently with base hits. Kwan has purchased property on 2nd base and more often then not, he comes home before trotting to the dugout. Kwan is second in the league in hits and average, just one hit behind Ohtani. His new found aggressiveness has paid off immensely and of course his defense in left field has remained gold glove caliber.
The Guardians come away with a series sweep at home and you can’t help but start to think… is this the Vogt era? Is this just the new Guardians? I know, its not even May. But this is one of the best starts this team has had since 1948. Remember what happened in 1948? Me neither because my grandparents weren’t born yet. But rumor has it.. the boys won a World Series. Stay tuned for my blog post in October titled “Hang the Banner.”