Hunter Gaddis gave the Cleveland Guardians an injury scare during spring training, when he was shut down for a few days with forearm tightness, and essentially had to restart his throwing program.

Cleveland’s setup man ended up starting the regular season on the injured list. Still, he was activated and made his first appearance of the year on Monday night in the Guardians 9-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

Forearm injury can be scary, but there were some encouraging signs in Gaddis’ outing that show he’s healthy after a delayed start to the year.

One of the big concerns coming off a forearm injury, whether it's minor or severe, is how a pitcher’s velocity will look. For Gaddis, it didn’t look great during his rehab outings with the Clippers.

Thankfully, the right-hander was throwing his fastball just as hard, and in some cases harder, as he was a year ago. 

Gaddis’ four-seamer topped out at 95.9 mph, and of the seven pitches he threw, the average was 95.1 mph. For reference, his fastball velocity in 2025 was 94.7 mph.

At least for now, Gaddis has shut down any concerns that the forearm tightness would affect how hard he’s able to throw on the mound.

One of the qualities that makes Gaddis such an effective reliever is his command; the right-hander rarely allows free base runners.

Even after starting the season on the injured list, Gaddis proved in his first appearance of the year that his command is as strong as ever. He threw a total of 21 pitches in his 1.0 inning of work, and had 12 of those pitches land in the zone for strikes. 

Yes, Gaddis did walk Masyn Winn on five pitches, but this was an outlier compared to the rest of the hitters he faced. Of the six hitters Gaddis went up against, he had five first-pitch strikes.

This command should be an encouraging sign that the forearm injury won’t linger. 

Gaddis’ fastball velocity looked strong, but his punchout pitch has always been the sliders, and that reigned true in his first outing of the year.

Gaddis threw his slider 13 times, more than any other pitch, and speaking of command, accounting for four of his first-pitch strikes. His sole swing and miss of the night also came on the slider.

It definitely wasn’t a perfect outing against the Cardinals by any means, but Cleveland should be encouraged with what they saw from the reliever after missing the start of the year with an injury.

Guardians Roundtable also offers a fan community and message board. We’d love to have you join us to talk all things Guardians. Click the “Join” button at the top of the page to join our community for free.