The Cleveland Guardians had a difficult assignment to open their 2026 season, visiting the reigning AL West champions: the Seattle Mariners. They won the first and third games of the four-game set, losing the other two to leave their record at 2-2.
In each of the four games, rookie outfielder Chase DeLauter left his mark one way or another. He has been one of the most exciting players in the league in the first few days, hitting .353 with a 1.059 OPS, four home runs, and five RBI. He is changing the narrative around the Guardians and giving them another building block.
He still hasn’t walked and is striking out at a 35.3 percent rate, but he has shown enough in the minor leagues to suggest improvements can be achieved in both departments.
The slugging ability is what has stood out the most in the early going. We all knew that DeLauter had power, but few people envisioned him leading the league in home runs after the first weekend of play.
He has reached so many bases in his first four ballgames that he is already in possession of a franchise record.
“DeLauter’s 18 total bases through his first 4 career games are a Guardians franchise record to begin a career, passing Roy Weatherly, who collected 16 bases in his first four games in 1936,” Joe Noga of Cleveland.com wrote.
To be fair, DeLauter had the record even after his third game on Saturday, but reached 18 total bases and broke the Mariners’ no-hit bid at the same time with a single in the seventh frame on Sunday. To that point, right-hander Emerson Hancock had gotten the best out of the entire Guardians’ offense.
Some might consider his swing awkward or even ugly, but it is, in fact, a thing of beauty and extremely functional: short, compact, and highly explosive. And the best part is that he has the bat control and reaction time to make adjustments on the go.
He can pull the ball to right field, or he can adjust his swing path to reach a high fastball outside the zone and take it to the left field bleachers, as he did against Mariners closer Andres Munoz on Saturday.
DeLauter is already a beast, and the scary thing is that he can be even better once the walks start coming.
NEXT: Guardians Struggle In Loss To Mariners On Sunday
