News and Notes: Guardians Rise From Baltimore Low, Look to Bury Pirates Today

News and Notes for Sunday, April 20th, 2025

The Guardians have won the Luis Ortiz Revenge Game and the Ben Lively Beats Your Ace game; now all they have to do is back their best starter (by ERA) in Logan Allen today to sweep the Pirates.

In case you haven’t heard, Twitter is ablaze with the comments of ignorant fans blaming Jose Ramirez for tagging Enmanual Valdez after the player lifted his hand off of third base after a leadoff triple for the Pirates in the bottom of the ninth. Of course, this isn’t t-ball, professionals don’t not make outs because another player is hurt, but it is absolutely clear from this replay that Ramirez had no way of knowing Valdez was hurt. The Pittsburgh announcer didn’t know he was hurt until after the out:

The anger should be at the umpire who didn’t give Valdez time despite the player asking for it repeatedly. But, Pirates’ manager Derek Shelton didn’t seem to put up much of a protest... I wonder how long he is for that job.

Maybe, maybe these past couple games have seen the emergence from early season funks/bad luck of Nolan Jones:

Kyle Manzardo and Bo Naylor, for whom I’d show you video clips from Baseball Savant also but the website is glitching at the moment. In any case, Naylor has his wRC+ up over 100 and is trying to catch up to Austin Hedges at 187 wRC+ but we can’t all be catching sluggers like Hedgey, you know.

From their early season funks/bad luck. But, we’re still waiting for that kind of thing from Lane Thomas and Jhonkensy Noel. Hopefully, it’ll happen today against Mitch Keller should they get the opportunity.

Shoutout to Ben Lively, by the way. The man continually finds a way to give his team a shot to win and I appreciate him. Also, looks like Jose is batting third again, which is fine. Lineup comfort is important. By the numbers, he’d be best hitting second, but as long as he’s batting in the first three hitters, we’re good (it’s about 15 fewer AB’s over a season in the 3 hole).

AROUND MLB:

Fun little bench-clearing brawl between the Blue Jays and Mariners over a pitch-relay accusation.

The Tigers beat the flailing Royals, and the Braves came back again to beat the struggling Twins.

Mike Trout hit two home runs and the Angels lost 3-2 in a return of the Tungsten Arm O’Doyle phenomenon.