Previewing Guardians' Second Half

You know, it's the All-Star break, and-

Mm-hmm

... got about 70-some games left.

So let's see what we think about what's happened so far, and what we think's ahead, what kind of things we wanna see happen and hope might happen, those kind of things.

So I guess let's briefly look in the rear view mirror for a minute.

Uh, what are some takeaways from the, it's not really first half, but the first 90-some games for these Guardians? What do you think?

The same old Guardians of the last half-decade.

The pitching is really, really good, um, by all metrics.

It's a top 10, debatably top five pitching staff, depending on what you look at.

Um, the rotation, fortunately, has been, um, healthy all year.

They've gotten a Cy Young caliber season out of Parker Messick.

Um, Joey Cantillo looks to be a real, like, mid-rotation arm.

Um, Devon Williams has stumbled a little bit, um, but just feels like they've made some, some arsenal tweaks to h- to him that haven't necessarily worked over the last month or so.

Um, but I have full confidence that he will get back to being the dominant version of himself that we remember from earlier on in the year.

Um, Bibee has been, well, better than last year, so that's good.

And the bullpen has been, um, shaky, but I mean, everyone's bullpen this year has been shaky, except for the Braves, and I suppose the Padres.

Kate Smith has been good, not as good, but still good.

Colin Holderman has been...

I, I, I sometimes fail to find the words to, to adequately sum up what Colin Holderman has meant to this bullpen all year.

[laughs]

Um, he's been, he's been the reason that...

I mean, I, I, I don't, I mean, I, I, I don't.

I know that WAR doesn't necessarily, um, believe this, but WPA does.

I think that we would be in a much different place without Colin Holderman.

WPA is win probability added, in case anyone-