The Guardians’ infield experiment unraveled fast Wednesday night, and Toronto made them pay for every miscue on the way to an 11-0 rout at Progressive Field.
With rookies Travis Bazzana and Angel Genao handling the middle of the diamond, Cleveland’s defense sprang a leak at exactly the wrong time. The Blue Jays kept finding the cracks, and Joey Cantillo absorbed the damage in a game that turned lopsided almost immediately.
Bazzana’s rough night at second base began in the first inning, when Brett Bateman led off with a liner that shot past him. Bazzana dove but couldn’t get there, and one out later Vladimir Guerrero Jr. doubled to center to bring Bateman home and put Toronto up 1-0.
The bigger blow came in the second, when the Blue Jays piled up five unearned runs and the Guardians never recovered. Ernie Clement, Andres Gimenez and Myles Straw - all former Guardians - opened the inning with two singles and a walk, loading the bases with one out. Cantillo was in trouble, but he should have escaped.
Bateman then hit a grounder to Nathaniel Lowe at first, and Lowe threw home to force Clement for the second out. But George Springer followed with a bouncer to Genao at short.
Genao had a chance to go to first for the final out, but instead tried to take the short route and throw to second. Bazzana was late arriving, Genao’s throw sailed high, and it skipped into right field as Gimenez and Straw scored to make it 3-0.
Two pitches later, Guerrero made it even worse. He turned on Cantillo’s 1-0 curveball and drove it over the wall in left for a two-run shot and a 5-0 Toronto lead. It was Guerrero’s second homer since the All-Star break and his eighth of the season, and he finished 3 for 5 with five RBI.
Cantillo did get Alejandro Kirk to end the inning, but by then the game was already slipping away with Dylan Cease in command on the other side. Cease, a Cy Young candidate, worked six scoreless innings, gave up four hits and struck out four on 83 pitches. He’s now 6-2 in his last eight starts and 8-5 with a 3.14 ERA in 15 career starts against Cleveland.
Cantillo’s line was ugly: nine runs allowed, a career high, though only four were earned. He finished 0-2 with a 3.48 ERA in two starts against Toronto this season. Before facing the Blue Jays, he had pitched six innings against the Angels and allowed two earned runs while walking a career-high seven batters.
The Guardians did have a chance to at least settle things down on the standings front, entering the night three games behind the first-place White Sox in the AL Central. The White Sox and Houston were still playing when Cleveland’s game ended. In the wild card race, the Guardians stayed 1 1/2 games ahead of Toronto, Texas and Baltimore for the final spot, with Texas and Baltimore both losing Wednesday night.
Toronto kept adding on anyway. Straw’s two-out double in the third pushed the lead to 7-0, then the Blue Jays scored twice more against Cantillo in the sixth and tacked on single runs in the eighth and ninth.
Cleveland’s offense never answered. The Guardians were held to six hits and shut out for the 14th time this season, while Toronto finished with a 15-6 edge in hits.
Carlos Hernandez took over for Cantillo in the sixth and worked two innings. Austin Hedges, the Guardians’ catcher, handled the final 1 2/3 innings as Cleveland’s last pitcher.
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