Cleveland Guardians' Gavin Williams bounces back after a career-worst start to a career-best.
Gavin Williams wasn’t happy with his previous outing and admitted that he came into Tuesday’s outing with an extra chip on his shoulder.
The Cleveland Guardians' starting pitcher only pitched 1.1 innings last week against the Los Angeles Angels, which was the shortest outing of his career.
Tuesday evening against the Toronto Blue Jays was an entirely different story. Williams was precise around the zone, efficient in each count, and put together yet another dominant outing on the mound.
Williams ended up pitching 7.0 innings, gave up just two hits, one unearned run, issued one walk, and set a new career-high with 13 strikeouts with a whiff rate of 51 percent.
This start also marked the 14th time in Williams’ career that he logged double-digit strikeouts in a start. It was also the 10th time this season, which is tied with Milwaukee Brewers’ Jacob Misirowksi for the most in the Majors this season.
Sep 1, 2026; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Guardians pitcher Gavin Williams (32) reacts after striking out Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Andres Gimenez (not pictured) to end the seventh inning at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn ImagesThe irony of this start is that it wasn’t shaping up to be a career-best outing for Williams. Both he and catcher Patrick Bailey admitted the bullpen session before the game didn’t go great.
“It wasn’t the greatest bullpen, so I was a little worried,” Bailey said.
“If you would have saw it before the game, you would have had somebody up in the first inning,” Williams added. “But when there's somebody in the box, things change.”
However, the resilience truly makes Williams such a great all-around pitcher.
“Absolutely lights out,” said manager Stephen Vogt postgame. “And to make that big of a transition from his last time out to that, just credit to him, credit to our pitching team to get it back on track. That was super impressive.”
With an outing such as this one, the Guardians didn’t need to score a ton of runs to secure a victory, but they still managed to pour six runs on Blue Jays pitching.
All six of Cleveland’s runs came via the long ball.
Patrick Bailey’s two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth gave the Guardians the lead, and Angel Genao’s pinch-hit blast in the bottom of the seventh provided some much-needed insurance runs.
Angel Martinez then wanted to get in on the action with his own two-run shot in the bottom of the eighth inning.
It’s only one game, but this single victory could have massive postseason implications once all 162 games have been played. Entering Tuesday’s action, the Blue Jays were just 1.5 games back of Cleveland for the final Wild Card spot.
The Guardians must now win the next two games of the series to clinch the season series over Toronto, which would give Cleveland the first playoff tiebreaker if both clubs finish with the same record at season's end.
There’s a lot of baseball left between these two teams, but the Guardians started off the week on a high note, in large part thanks to Williams’ dominant outing.
