Matt Festa surprisingly carved out a nice little role for himself in the Cleveland Guardians bullpen last season, appearing in 63 games and delivering a 4.12 ERA over 54.2 innings. Through a few games in 2026, it looks like he’ll retain a similar role as one of the first arms out of the pen.
Festa has given up a pair of earned runs in his three appearances thus far and is looking to take his performance up another level this season as the Guardians aim for another AL Central crown. In order to do that, he recently carried over a little performance-enhancing trick he picked up during his stint with Italy in the World Baseball Classic.
Mason Horodyski of WEWS shared a clip of Festa’s brief media session in the locker room. He spoke with Horodyski about his comfort level being the first member out of the bullpen, and Festa mentioned that he installed the espresso machine from the WBC in Cleveland’s bullpen.
“That’s 1-0 so far,” said Festa.
Before tonights game got postponed, I caught up with #Guardians Matt Festa for a bit on his comfortability usually being the 1st arm out of the bullpen.
Festa also says he installed an espresso machine from the WBC in the Cleveland bullpen.
"Thats 1-0 so far" #GuardsBall @WEWS pic.twitter.com/ut2V0LCu8L
— Mason Horodyski (@MasonHorodyski) April 4, 2026
Hunter Gaddis recently returned from injury to help round out this bullpen, but his presence shouldn’t affect Festa much at all. Hopefully he likes espresso, because Festa’s got plenty of it.
The bullpen has big shoes to fill this year as it is still dealing with the loss of star closer Emmanuel Clase due to his alleged gambling transgressions. While Cade Smith has slotted into his closer role quite well, others like Gaddis and Eric Sabrowski are going to have to continue settling into setup roles while Festa continues to hold down the middle innings.
At 33 years old, Festa is coming off what was a career year in a lot of ways. He finally stuck in the big leagues after bouncing around since 2018, and this fan base is lucky to have him.
We’ll see if the espresso trend catches on and the rest of the team starts partaking alongside him. Perhaps it’s the key to unlocking a few more miles per hour on the fastball.
NEXT: Stephen Vogt Gives Update About Hunter Gaddis' Return
