Gavin Williams delivered one of the signature performances of Cleveland’s season Thursday, striking out 11 over seven innings to lead the Guardians to a 5-2 win over Minnesota and snap a four-game losing streak. That kind of outing has become part of a pattern for Williams, a pitcher capable of dominant stretches that stand in sharp contrast to a handful of disastrous starts that have inflated his overall numbers. He sits at 10-4 with a 3.81 ERA and 134 strikeouts on the season, respectable production that Williams himself believes should look considerably better given his stuff and his ceiling.
Following Thursday’s win, Williams offered a blunt self-assessment of exactly where his first half fell short.
“I think it could have been a lot better. I know I had a few bad games, a seven run game, a six run game. I’ve got to cut those down a little bit, and it’d be a lot better than what it is. I definitely think I could do a lot better than what I’ve done,” Williams said.
Williams’ honesty lines up directly with the numbers behind his season. A seven-run outing against Milwaukee in June and a six-run game against Toronto back in April both stand out as clear outliers compared to the rest of his starts, the kind of results that can drag a full-season ERA well above where a pitcher’s true talent level actually sits. Strip those two starts away and Williams’ body of work looks a great deal closer to a frontline starter than his overall numbers currently suggest, which is likely exactly the gap he was referencing.
Thursday’s outing against Minnesota may be the clearest evidence yet of what Williams is capable of when he limits the big innings that have occasionally derailed his starts. He needed just one shaky stretch in the fifth inning to escape trouble, working around a bases-loaded jam by getting a force out at the plate and freezing the final hitter on a called third strike rather than compounding the damage further.
Williams’ willingness to hold himself to a higher standard, even immediately following one of his best starts of the year, reflects the mindset of a pitcher who sees real Cy Young caliber upside in his own arm. Cleveland’s rotation has increasingly leaned on him as a stopper during difficult stretches, and his own comments suggest he views that role as something he should be handling even more consistently. If Williams can eliminate the handful of blowup starts he referenced, the version of him on display Thursday could become the norm rather than the exception over the second half.
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