CLEVELAND — Six months removed from a memorable ALCS that saw the New York Yankees advance to their first World Series since 2009, the Cleveland Guardians welcomed the Bronx Bombers back to Progressive Field for a three-game set this week.
After so much turnover on both sides — just 12 Yankees and 16 Guardians from those 26-man ALCS rosters were still on the active rosters this week — it’d be disingenuous to call this a full-fledged rematch, and the players largely downplayed the significance of squaring off again not long after such an emotional trio of playoff games. Every season is different, of course, and many new characters for each franchise are now tasked with pursuing their own run to October.
Advertisement
As it stands, this week’s clash offered an early glimpse at two teams once again hoping to be relevant throughout the summer and into the fall, remodeled rosters and all. Amid a first month in which the American League pecking order feels entirely unsettled, any additional data points are welcome. Here are five big-picture takeaways from this week’s series, in which Cleveland snagged the first two games before New York avoided the sweep with a 5-1 victory on Wednesday.
Multiple Yankees chasing a batting title?
Usually when Aaron Judge endures prolonged stretches without hitting the ball over the fence, the strikeouts start piling up and an overall decline in production occurs before he reverts to his Best Hitter On Planet Earth standards. Last April is a perfect example: Judge had a 15-game stretch in which he hit .161 with just one homer and 21 strikeouts — a poor run of form that obviously didn’t derail what turned out to be a unanimous MVP campaign.
Advertisement
This year, Judge came out of the gates hot, with six homers in his first seven games, a blistering pace that had us all wondering if another 60-homer season could be in store. Since opening week, however, Judge has hit just one long ball, while several other sluggers have caught up to or even passed him on the home run leaderboard.
But unlike past brief power outages in which his overall numbers dipped, Judge has looked as locked in as ever lately: He’s hitting an astonishing .431 over his past 18 games with an equal number of walks (13) and strikeouts (13), raising his season-long batting average to .415, by far the best among qualified hitters. Judge isn’t a total stranger to competing for batting titles, having finished second and third in the AL in batting average in his MVP campaigns in 2022 and 2024. But his hit-collecting skills seem to have elevated even further in 2025, as evidenced by his career-low 20.4% strikeout rate.
“Everyone always talks about the homers, but he is such a pure, good hitter and good baseball player in general,” Guardians right-hander Tanner Bibee said after Judge’s 4-for-4 game on Tuesday, which also featured a stolen base and a diving catch in right field.
Advertisement
“Kinda slapping it around the field tonight,” manager Aaron Boone said with a wry smile after Judge’s three singles and double, hinting sarcastically at the gargantuan superstar’s recent low-slug tendencies. “He continues to do really great things. Obviously, he’s playing out of his mind right now.”
In his first at-bat Wednesday, Judge sent a booming fly ball to straightaway center field. It clanged off the top of the wall and caromed away far enough for him to secure his first triple of the season (and sixth of his career). That near-miss — along with last weekend’s home run that wasn’t in Tampa — are signs that another power surge is surely right around the corner, but Judge will continue to get on base any way he can.
Only adding to the intrigue surrounding Judge’s spectacular early lead in the batting title race is the fact that he has a teammate behind him in second place: Paul Goldschmidt. Goldschmidt leads MLB with 12 multi-hit games this season, including two this week in Cleveland to raise his season average to a whopping .383. What’s most curious about Goldschmidt’s hot hitting in the early going is how little power has come with it. His average exit velocity and hard-hit rate are both at career lows, and his lone homer came all the way back on opening weekend in New York’s infamous 20-9 blowout of the Brewers that sparked the torpedo bat craze.
Advertisement
Goldschmidt smoked two doubles Wednesday, with exit velocities of 104.2 and 108.6 mph, a reminder that the 37-year-old former MVP can still impact the ball with authority. Still, it will be interesting to watch how Goldschmidt’s stat line evolves over the course of the season and whether his gaudy batting average can sustain if he’s no longer hitting the ball as hard as he did during his prime.
What’s the deal with Emmanuel Clase?
One of the biggest stories of last year’s postseason was Emmanuel Clase’s shocking struggles after he delivered one of the best regular seasons we’ve ever seen from a reliever. After allowing just five earned runs in 74 ⅓ innings and leading the AL in saves for the third year in a row, Clase surrendered eight runs across seven messy October outings, shattering the air of invincibility he had maintained for months. But based on Clase’s excellent track record, it seemed reasonable to dismiss his playoff woes as a fluke and expect him to return to elite form in 2025 — or so we thought.
Advertisement
It’s still early, but Clase has been downright bad thus far. His ERA is 7.84 in 10 ⅓ innings, and his WHIP, which was a sterling 0.659 a year ago, is currently 2.226. His .487 BABIP against suggests some brutal batted-ball luck in the early going, but Clase is also allowing markedly more hard contact, his velocity on both his cutter and slider has been down a tick, and his command has been concerningly shoddy. He has coughed up runs in five of his 11 outings, including three on Sunday against the lowly Pirates. It has been ugly.
On Monday, ahead of the series against the Yankees, manager Stephen Vogt was steadfast in his support of Clase. He was adamant that there was no reason to move away from Clase as the closer at this stage.
“I haven’t even had the thought,” Vogt said. “Emmanuel Clase has been the best closer in this game for a number of years now. He’s getting hit, he’s leaving the ball over the middle more than he should, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not the closer. He’s still the best closer on the planet. There’s some things that we’re going to continue to work with him on, but Emmanuel Clase is going to get the ball in the ninth when he’s available.”
Advertisement
Vogt also made it clear that Clase was unavailable for Monday’s game after throwing in all three games in Pittsburgh, including laboring through 30 pitches on Sunday. Instead, it was Cade Smith who locked down the 6-4 victory to open the Yankees series, including striking out Aaron Judge to end the game. Eyebrows were raised Tuesday when Clase remained in the bullpen as another save opportunity arose, with Smith again closing out a narrow Cleveland victory.
Afterward, Vogt reiterated that Clase is fine and that the team wanted to give him an extra day off. On Wednesday morning, however, Vogt revealed that Clase dealt with some “shoulder discomfort” after Sunday’s outing, thus making his availability more of a day-to-day situation. Whether an IL stint is required remains to be seen, but it’s an ominous update on a pitcher who has never been on the injured list as a big leaguer. That level of durability in tandem with his dominance has made Clase so valuable for Cleveland, but now both hallmarks of the closer’s reputation appear in jeopardy.
The good news for Cleveland is that their bullpen is not a one-man show. Last year’s tremendous trio of Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis and Tim Herrin have continued to excel in high-leverage opportunities, giving Vogt ample alternatives to navigate the late innings. Even so, Clase’s status is one to monitor closely in the coming days, as he remains the headliner in this Guardians bullpen, and a potential absence would unquestionably alter its complexion moving forward.
Giancarlo Stanton takes some swings
On the injured list before the season began due to injuries in both elbows, Giancarlo Stanton has been slowly rehabbing behind the scenes, albeit without a definitive timetable for a return to the Yankees lineup. GM Brian Cashman declared corrective surgery a “last resort” in March, meaning Stanton would gradually resume baseball activities as his pain tolerance allowed. This week represented our clearest look yet at Stanton’s rehab since he was shut down during spring training, as he took batting practice on the field before Tuesday’s game. It was a fitting venue for Stanton to emerge after his epic showing during last year’s postseason, which featured home runs in all three ALCS games in Cleveland, and a reminder of the kind of impact he could make should he eventually return to the Yankees’ lineup at full strength.
Advertisement
“I don’t usually hit on the field, so I wanted to pop out here and get a feel for what my work is inside and build that way,” Stanton told reporters after his batting practice session, explaining that he has been swinging recently in the indoor batting cages.
Boone later confirmed that hitting outside did not necessarily carry any significance because of the behind-the-scenes work already in progress, but it was a refreshing sight nonetheless. “Certainly it’s good to see him out there and in a group hitting — I think all of us get a smile seeing that,” he said. “But I don’t know if it’s a significant step because he’s been doing a lot more than that.”
Stanton said his elbows are “getting better,” and he has remained with the team as much as possible throughout the rehab process, staying involved in team meetings and practices in an effort to pick up his routine more easily once he’s back in the lineup. As for when that could be, he didn’t say when he expects to head out on a rehab assignment, so it doesn’t seem like his prodigious power will be back on display especially soon.
Advertisement
That said, whenever Stanton does return, the Yankees might have to get creative with their roster configuration. Ben Rice’s brilliant breakout as the Yankees’ primary DH in Stanton’s absence has hardly slowed down, with the 26-year-old adding another homer to lead off Tuesday’s game, the first opposite-field home run of the young slugger’s career. A catcher in the minors, Rice has almost exclusively played first base and DH since the middle of last season, which makes it unclear if the team is willing to rely on him as a backstop in even a backup capacity.
What is clear is that Rice deserves to be in the every-day lineup in some form, presenting a potential conundrum once Stanton returns if Rice is considered strictly a DH and Goldschmidt continues to hit as the every-day first baseman. How the Yankees will find consistent at-bats for Rice, Stanton and Goldschmidt — not to mention veteran infielder DJ LeMahieu, who is also rehabbing — could be one of the bigger second-half storylines in the Bronx.
Gavin Williams starting to deliver as key rotation member
After injuries and underperformance completely derailed Cleveland’s rotation in 2024 — the unit ranked 23rd in ERA (4.40), 28th in quality starts (43) and 27th in fWAR — a big focus for the Guardians entering 2025 was to assemble a starting staff that offered more stability and more upside. Those efforts included retaining Shane Bieber in free agency and acquiring hard-throwing right-hander Luis Ortiz from Pittsburgh, but they also hinged greatly on the development of 25-year-old Gavin Williams, Cleveland’s first-round pick in 2021.
Advertisement
Monday provided the most encouraging sign yet that the Guardians’ high hopes for Williams are warranted. He allowed just two runs across 6 ⅓ innings, garnering a career-high 21 swing-and-misses from Yankees hitters, including 10 on his four-seam fastball that maxed out at 99.6 mph. His curveball was also fantastic, and he reintroduced a cutter in the 90-93 mph range that we saw at times last year but had yet to see in 2025.
“The fastball was outstanding, he added the cutter back and got some really good weak contact, and swing-and-misses. He was executing the curveball,” Vot said afterward. “It was just a beautifully thrown game by Gavin. We’ve kind of been waiting for that one.”
Williams has a rather unique arsenal for a starter, relying heavily on two breaking balls (curveball and sweeper) to keep opponents off-balance, rather than throwing a traditional off-speed pitch such as a change-up or splitter. Nick Pivetta is a rare parallel of a starter who has found success with a strikingly similar repertoire, and Williams throws considerably harder than Pivetta. If he can improve his command and figure out a pitch mix that can consistently produce whiffs like we saw Monday, Williams’ high-end stuff should start translating into high-end results. That would be a massive development for Cleveland.
Advertisement
Triston McKenzie’s chapter in Cleveland ends
It wasn’t all that long ago that Triston McKenzie looked like one of the most promising young starting pitchers in the league, posting a 2.96 ERA across 191 ⅓ innings in 2022 as an emerging co-ace alongside Bieber. But an elbow injury limited McKenzie to 16 innings in 2023, and his performance has suffered mightily ever since, resulting in a precipitous fall down the depth chart and ultimately off the roster, with Cleveland designating him for assignment on Monday. Drafted out of a Florida high school in 2015, McKenzie was one of the longest-tenured members of the Guardians organization and one of its most likable personalities on and off the field, so this roster move carried significantly more emotional heft than the average DFA.
At just 27 years old, McKenzie still boasts enough talent for a new organization to try to cultivate into more reliable run prevention, and his positive clubhouse presence alone is well worth the gamble for a rebuilding team. Even if a return to frontline-starter status feels farfetched, McKenzie deserves a change of scenery to try to get his career back on track. At the same time, on a team with October aspirations, every roster spot is critical, and McKenzie’s performance simply didn’t suffice for what Cleveland needs right now, forcing them to close the book on a popular player’s Guardians tenure.
