Guardians' Debut Spoiled By Royals' Star Debutant Bobby Witt

The Guardians made a couple of costly mistakes and couldn't get a clutch hit in losing the first game of the season.

Through one game, the 2022 Cleveland Guardians look a lot like the 2021 Cleveland Indians.

The team got good pitching, a few good defensive plays mixed in with a couple bad ones, and an offense that couldn't really buy a clutch hit.

Back-to-back two-out, RBI hits from highly-touted prospect Bobby Witt Jr. and Andrew Benintendi pushed the Royals out front and the Guardians dropped the first game in the new era of the franchise, 3-1.

The Guardians pitching staff combined to allow just five base hits, but three runs was too much for the offense to overcome. Cleveland went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position, managing only a Jose Ramirez RBI double in the fourth inning.

While those two eighth inning hits will grab most of the attention because of the late drama surrounding them (including Witt's first ever Major League hit), a couple costly mistakes seemed to be ominous signs early in the game.

Kansas City's defense is expected to be perhaps the best in the big leagues this year. Both Witt and slick-fielding second baseman Nicky Lopez each made fabulous defensive plays early in the game to stymie any of Cleveland's chances.

Terry Francona has acknowledged that his defense needs to play lights out this year to give the Guardians a chance to win consistently. Shortstop-turned-left fielder Amed Rosario dropped a fly ball in the fifth and a couple batters later, neither he nor Myles Straw could get to a normally-catchable ball in left-center that brought home a tying run and knocked Shane Bieber out of the game.

It was a blustery afternoon in KC, but those are the kind of mistakes that could be pretty costly throughout the year.

Those kinds of things can be even more costly when the offense has trouble coming up with clutch hits.

Bobby Bradley also booted a ball at first base, but Bieber worked around it unscathed.

After missing nearly three months of the 2021 season with a shoulder injury, Bieber made a couple of 3-inning appearances in September before shutting down for the year. Bieber was limited to 72 pitches today and gave up just that one run on three hits, while striking out four.

On the other side, the Guardians stranded nine men on base, including leaving them loaded in the sixth. Five of the eight stranded runners were in scoring position with two outs.

While some early defensive blunders were costly, the Guardians got three fabulous defensive plays to keep the game tied in the seventh inning. 

Austin Hedges threw out Carlos Santana at second base after Hunter Dozier's sac-bunt attempt didn't work out. Then Oscar Mercado - who came into the game as part of a slew of defensive changes in the sixth - made a gorgeous sliding catch after a full sprint straight in from left field on a shallow pop up. Then Hedges threw out threw out Dozier trying to steal second base to end the inning.

The team is off on Friday before they get back to work on Saturday afternoon. Zac Plesac is scheduled to make his first start of the season.

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