May 1, 2026
In the 7th inning of Friday’s game against the Orioles, Daniel Schneeman broke open a 0-0 game with a grand slam off reliever Anthony Nunez.
It was just the second time in franchise a 0-0 tied had been broken with a grand slam in the 7th inning or later.
The first was Mike Aviles‘ 9th-inning grand slam off Joaquin Benoit in Detroit in 2013.
On Thursday against the Orioles, Steven Kwan went 2-4 with an RBI.
It was his 181st career multi-hit game from the leadoff spot, moving him into sole possession of fifth place on the franchise leaderboard:
Things got off to a shaky start with a 32-pitch first inning for Gavin Williams on Monday night, but he rallied to get through five innings and picked up the win against the Cardinals.
Through four starts, Williams now has a 2.38 ERA but has only thrown 22 2/3 innings due to an inability to find the strike zone.
Williams has walked 16 batters through his four starts, making him just the sixth Cleveland pitchers since 1990 with at least 16 walks through four games.
The others:
Williams, Finley, Wright and Carmona all had an ERA under 3.00 despite the walks, which sounds surprising but I suppose you have to be limiting the damage in order to be left in the games long enough to keep walking everyone.
On Saturday night in Atlanta, Parker Messick was brilliant against, holding the Braves scoreless through 6 2/3 innings.
It was Messick’s 10th career start and lowered his career ERA to 2.04.
Over the last 100 seasons, only 34 players have posted an ERA of 2.04 or lowers through their first 10 career outings with at last 50 innings pitched.
Here are the most recent to do it:
Messick mark is the best by a Cleveland pitcher in the last 100 years, surpassing Gene Bearden’s mark of 2.18 during his first 10 starts which spanned the 1947 and 1948 seasons.
I can’t say for certain if it’s an all-time franchise record due to lack of game-by-game earned run data in some early seasons of MLB.
If we change the criteria slightly and say 10 career starts (instead of 10 career games), it’s the second lowest ERA in team history trailing only Fred Link (1.94 ERA through 10 starts in 1910).
Through two career games, Juan Brito is batting .500, having gone 2-4 in each game.
He’s the 11th player in franchise history with at least two hits in each of his first two career games.
The others:
Only Stephenson extended his streak, eventually reaching six games.
Brito, Jones, Gonzalez and Weatherly are the only players on the list with at least one of their two hits each game going for extra bases
In Wednesday’s blowout win over the Royals, Angel Martinez collected four hits and capped off his day with an 8th inning grand slam.
He’s the 15th player in franchise history with four hits and a grand slam in a game, and the first since 2010
Here’s the list
Martinez is the first to also add a stolen base to his stat line.
Through his first 10 games of the season, Kyle Manzardo is 2-32, a pitiful .063 batting average.
Throughout franchise history, only two others have been worse (with at least 35 plate appearances) through 10 games. Here’s the list:
Tucker was a September call-up who never played against in the big leagues. Leon was a backup catcher who had minimal preparation in that weird 2020 season. O’Neill was also a catcher. And Score, Moore and Mails are pitchers.
Yikes.
In Sunday’s 6-5 win over the Cubs, Parker Messick allowed just one run over five innings, lowering his career ERA to 2.31 through nine starts.
Over the last 100 seasons, only two others have posted a lower ERA through nine career games (minimum 50 IP) with Cleveland:
It’s also the second consecutive years in which Messick has generated an ERA under 1.00 through his first two appearances of the season.
He’s just the fifth Cleveland pitcher in the last 100 years to accomplish that feat (minimum 10 IP):
Tiant, Shane Bieber and Mel Harder also did it two (Harder three times) but in non-consecutive years.
In the home opener, Chase DeLauter did it again, blasting his fifth homer in his just seventh game.
He’s the fourth player in history with at least five homers through seven career regular season games, joining:
Shelley Duncan also had five home runs through the first seven games in which he had a plate appearance with the 2007 Yankees. However, in his third career game he was a defensive replacement and did not come to the plate, so technically it took him eight games to reach five home runs.
The previous franchise record was four, by Luis Medina in 1988.
Kevin Kouzmanoff and Roger Maris were the only others with three.
DeLauter is also just the sixth player franchise history with five homers through the team’s first eight games, joining: