Cleveland Guardians Make Roster Decision With Triston McKenzie

Stephen Osterer, Cleveland’s director of pitching development, recently talked about McKenzie’s progress in Arizona, and is optimistic about 

“It's been a long road for Tristan. He's worked really hard. 
You know, he came in with a great attitude in Arizona and just wanted to work. So, as you can imagine, going through that process it's challenging physically; it's going to be challenging, obviously, mentally, to get back to where he was. So you put a lot of work into, you know, executing his stuff, getting his stuff back, getting the routine to support the consistency that he has, and then also working on the mindset and how he can actually show up and do the things that we know he's capable of doing,” said Osterer.

“Over the last few weeks, specifically has been really good; throwing a ton of strikes in his outings. Obviously, there’s bumps in the road, there's ups and downs in that process. 
It's really challenging. And I think, in a lot of ways, it did challenge Tristan, but he's come out in a pretty good spot right now, so we're excited to see what he can do for the next few weeks.”

The pitching coach noted that McKenzie’s primary role will be pitching out of the bullpen, even though the right-hander has primarily been a starting pitcher throughout his career. The plan is for sticks to appear on Sunday in a clean inning and, as Osterer said, “let him rip his stuff.”

Hopefully, McKenzie proves he’s a new pitcher during his time at Triple-A, but who knows if McKenzie will ever make it back to the big-league level. But he’s certainly taking a big step in making a triumphant return. 

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