The Cleveland Guardians missed a chance to win another series on Sunday, losing 10-0 to the Texas Rangers and dropping a three-game set. They still lead the AL Central with a 37-30 record, but the Chicago White Sox are dangerously close, two games behind.
Sunday evidently wasn’t Joey Cantillo’s day. The left-hander, who is in the midst of a rough patch, surrendered seven runs, all earned, and three homers to the Rangers offense. He struck out seven and walked two, but gave up a whopping nine hits in five innings.
It was a career-worst performance from the left-hander. He missed some bats, yes, but paid the price for his command issues.
“The three home runs and nine hits were the most [Cantillo’s] allowed in his career, and the seven earned runs matched his career high (he gave up seven to the Yankees on Aug. 21, 2024, in New York),” Drew Davison wrote.
Cantillo had been so good last year and for the better part of 2026 that we have to go to the 2024 campaign to find a similarly bad outing. However, he has lost some effectiveness in his last five turns.
From March 28 until May 11, the left-hander posted a 2.98 ERA in 45.1 frames. In his last five starts, however, from May 16 to June 7 (Sunday), his ERA is an unfathomable 7.89 in 21.2 innings.
Walks and homers are starting to become a problem for the talented southpaw. In those last five games, he has surrendered 2.49 home runs per nine innings and 6.65 walks per nine. That’s a deadly combination for any pitcher.
The Guardians and the pitcher himself hope this is just a blip in an otherwise long, grueling season. Every hurler experiences peaks and valleys over six or seven months. However, it’s fair to say there’s some level of concern, and the only thing that can appease those feelings will be a string of nice games in the not-so-distant future.
Cantillo is a very talented hurler; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to post a 3.21 ERA over 95.1 innings last season. He needs to be better than a 4.57 ERA, though, because the Guardians are counting on him as a trusted, valued member of the rotation.
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