The Cleveland Guardians have multiple excellent starters.
For one reason or another, people seem to be sleeping on one of the most talented of the bunch: Triston McKenzie.
Everybody is talking about Shane Bieber’s renewed velocity and Tanner Bibee, Gavin Williams, and Logan Allen’s rookie campaigns, and deservedly so.
However, McKenzie is every bit as good as most of them, and has already pitched a full dominant season in the past.
The fact that injuries have somewhat clouded his 2024 status is sad, especially because he is feeling excellent at the moment.
“Sticks,” as he is often called, missed the majority of 2023 with a teres major strain in his right shoulder, and then had a right forearm strain near the start of the second half.
As a result, he was limited to 16 innings in 2023.
Now, however, he is feeling better than ever and he proved it on Monday against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“Sticks struck out four in 3.0 innings yesterday. Looking pretty, pretty good,” the Guardians tweeted.
Sticks struck out four in 3.0 innings yesterday.
Looking pretty, pretty good.#GuardsSpring pic.twitter.com/tRunskxPX2
— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) March 12, 2024
Granted, McKenzie didn’t have to face Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, or Freddie Freeman.
However, he did have to deal with Gavin Lux, James Outman, Teoscar Hernandez, and Chris Taylor, among others.
There is a feeling that his arm is a ticking time bomb, but as long as the right-hander feels good enough to pitch like this every five days, he should get the ball.
In 2022, the world saw what he can do: he pitched 191.1 innings of a 2.96 ERA and had 190 strikeouts.
It’s not a coincidence that 2022 was the Guardians’ best season in years.
The team hopes he can return to that form in 2024.
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