*Photo from MLB.com*
Talk about some home field advantage. Josh Naylor homered twice and drove in 4 runs, Tanner Bibee was strong on the mound, and the Cleveland Guardians defeated the Seattle Mariners with a 8-0 victory Wednesday night in Cleveland.
After losing the series opener, the Guardians bounced back in a big way, evening the series and improving to 45-26 with the win. Naylor led the way in the lineup for the Guardians while Steven Kwan also drove in a pair of runs as the Guardians won their 22nd home game out of 31 this year.
Naylor gave the Guardians a 1-0 lead in the first inning, hitting a single to right field that scored Kwan. In the second inning, Kwan tripled the Guardians lead to 3-0 with a two run home run to right field, his 5th of the season. Jose Ramirez hit an RBI single in the 5th inning to pad the lead to 4-0 as Andres Gimenez scored.
Later in the inning, Naylor broke the game open for the Guardians, blasting a two run home run to right field to make it a 6-0 game. In the 6th, a different Naylor in the person of Bo Naylor made it 7-0 Guardians with an RBI single to right field. Josh Naylor then added his second home run of the game in the 7th, a solo shot that made it 8-0.
On the mound, Bibee was strong for the Guardians, racking up 12 strikeouts while allowing 3 hits and a walk in 6 shutout innings. In relief, a bullpen trio of Scott Barlow, Hunter Gaddis, and Emmanuel Clase each threw a scoreless inning to close out the win.
Bibee said of his start that "Cutter, slider, slurve, I think were all doing really good and it really, really helped for sure. Really kind of got 'em off the heater and then towards the end, kind of flip flopped it and didn't really feel like they knew what was coming."
Bryan Woo made the start for the Mariners, allowing 3 runs on 4 hits and a walk in 4 innings, striking out just one hitter. Mike Baumann pitched an inning and gave up 3 runs, while Cody Bolton gave up a run in one inning and Eduard Bazardo allowed a run in two innings.
Seattle manager Scott Servais said of Woo's start that "We were going to be very guarded with him no matter how it went but after the first inning it was nicer to see him out there get us a little deeper in the game. Command was an issue early on but once he got into the third and fourth inning he used the sweeper to slow them down. He’ll take the ball the next time around and hopefully be a little bit better."
The series wraps up Thursday afternoon. Both teams will be going for the series win, with Logan Allen starting for the Guardians against Luis Castillo of the Mariners.
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