Slade Cecconi Bounces Back in Guardians Win Over Royals

Slade Cecconi’s start to the 2026 season has been an up-and-down roller coaster, and his last few starts have not gone in the Cleveland Guardians pitcher’s favor. 

Even though Cecconi was credited with a win last weekend against the Athletics, he still allowed five earned runs on 10 hits, including two home runs.

However, his start against the Kansas City Royals during Cleveland’s 8-5 victory on Thursday was certainly more reminiscent of the pitcher he was a year ago.  

Cecconi ended up throwing 5.1 innings and only gave up two earned runs on six hits. The right-hander did uncharacteristically allow three walks, but also struck out three batters.

“I thought Slade threw the ball really well," said Stephen Vogt after the game.

"He kind of got himself into trouble at times, pitched in some bad counts, really made pitches when he needed to."

Cleveland's skipper also gave catcher Bo Naylor credit for how he called the game, too. 

"I thought Bo used the mix really well, got some weak contact, really, just battled through, you know, 5.1 [innings] for us, and kept them off the scoreboard. So outstanding job by Slade.”

The most encouraging piece to this start was that all of Cecconi’s pitches were landing in the zone. Cecconi’s best pitch will always be his fastball, but the cutter, sinker, and curveball all had at least one called strikeout throughout his start.

Because Cecconi doesn’t overpower hitters with his velocity or have an elite spin rate on his breaking pitches, he’s heavily reliant on the command of his entire arsenal to keep hitters guessing, and that’s exactly what he did against the Royals. 

Cecconi said after the game that these secondary pitches have been a primary focus for him over the last few days and weeks. 

"The curveball is back to where it is. That was a pretty quick and easy fix, I think," explained Cecconi.

As for the slider, Cecconi said he "went back to a grip that allowed me to get more depth on the baseball, because we've been noticing some trends with the grip that I've been throwing before, and the fact that the lift was allowing hitters to take better swings on it."

As Vogt acknowledged, Cecconi still has work to do, but his start against the Royals was certainly a step in the right direction and a bounce-back from where he was just a week ago. 

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