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The Cleveland Guardians are already having their pitching depth throughout the organization challenged in just the first month of the season.
Triston McKenzie was ruled out for two months before the season started and Aaron Civale was placed on the 15-Day IL on Monday. This forced a number of prospects to get their shot in the Big Leagues. One of those is Peyton Battenfield who looked incredible in his MLB debut.
It's never easy to pitch in a Major League game for the first time, especially when you have to go up against a lineup as intimidating as the Yankees.
But this clearly didn't phase Battenfield as he went out and had a spectacular start. He pitched 4.2 innings and only allowed four hits and one earned run. Battenfield also struck out three batters and issued no walks in his first start.
Tito and Carl Willis hoped that Battenfield could go out and get through New York's order at least twice and he did more than that. He had a streak of retiring 13 straight Yankee batters and had his stuff working beautifully.
Battenfield's best pitch was the cutter which he threw 48 percent of the time and got the Yankees to swing and miss 12 times off of it.
It's only one start, but this performance does give fans and the team some hope for the next month. It'll be some time before McKenzie and Civale get back to making starts for the Guardians and Cleveland needs to have some sort of game plan as to how they'll navigate through it all.
Something tells me that based on that start, Battenfield will continue to be in that strategy moving forward.
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More must-reads:
- Paul Skenes strikes out first seven batters he faces in second start of MLB career
- Insider expands on if Yankees' Juan Soto could sign extension during season
- The 'No. 1 overall pick in the MLB Draft' quiz
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