Gavin Williams has start pushed back to Monday

Espino opened Saturday’s contest against the Twins with two scoreless frames before departing at 26 pitches. He threw 21 for strikes and struck out two batters while giving up one hit. The 25-year-old right-hander has pitched out of the bullpen in his brief time with the Guardians, posting a 2.25 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, and a 20/4 K/BB ratio across 12 innings.

Williams gave up four hits, walked three and struck out 11. He has now struck out at least 11 batters in three of his last four starts. Williams will enter play Monday as MLB’s strikeout leader. He has a 3.78 ERA. Williams is lined up to face the Twins on the road next weekend.

Espino is officially up in the majors for a second time, which doesn’t include his one-day doubleheader stint in July. He’s allowed three runs and struck out 12 over six innings for the Guardians. He’d allowed four runs in 18 innings for Columbus since his previous demotion.

Williams gave up two hits, walked one and struck out 13. He improved to 13-7 with the win. Williams bounced back with a gaudy strikeout total after he allowed five runs and didn’t even make it out of the second inning in his last start. He tied Dylan Cease with 217 for the second-most strikeouts this year. Williams has a 3.81 ERA. He’s lined up to face the Tigers at home on Sunday.

In terms of following up his 11-strikeout effort against the Giants, Williams did not. He gave up six hits while getting just four outs, and two of those hits went over the fence. It’s a disappointing outing regardless of the situation, but after dominating for so much of that last outing against San Francisco, and then facing one of the worst teams in baseball, it just adds to said disappointment. He’ll get a chance to bounce back against the Blue Jays next week.

Williams racked up an impressive 11 strikeouts on the afternoon while issuing a pair of free passes. The only damage done against him came on a two-run blast by Willy Adames in the fourth inning. The 27-year-old hurler generated 18 swings and misses on 96 pitches on the day — seven of those on his fastball — while posting a strong CSW of 36 percent. He’ll look to keep the good times rolling as he carries a 3.72 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and a 201/48 K/BB ratio (154 2/3 innings) into Tuesday’s battle against the Angels in Los Angeles.

Williams was in trouble from the get-go in this start. The Padres put runners on the corners in each of the first two innings, but he found a way to wriggle out of each jam. Then, Xander Bogaerts finally got his squad on the board in the fourth when he launched a hanging sweeper from Williams for a two-run shot. Chaos followed in the fifth when Williams gave up a home run, two singles, and a walk to the first four batters and was pulled after a two-run double that came shortly thereafter. He struggled to command his fastball as that pitch had just a 39% zone rate and was forced to rely on his breaking stuff more than often. Knowing that, the Padres began to sit on those pitches and made him pay. One of the hottest pitchers in the league entering this start, let’s hope it’s merely a bump in the road. He’s scheduled to face the Giants at home next time out.

Williams allowed just three hits, and he blanked the White Sox until allowing a pair of runs in the sixth inning. He struck out seven, and 68-of-102 pitches landed for strikes in an outing that was impressive even with a less-than-spectacular ending. Williams has a respectable 3.55 ERA on the campaign, and he’ll be back on the bump Friday against the Padres.

Williams’ day might have been even better, but a rain delay chased him with two out in the sixth at 89 pitches. The right-hander sat 98.3 mph on his four-seam fastball with elite extension, as always. He also posted an absurd 24 percent swinging strike rate overall and 36 percent CSW while getting into two-strike counts on 79 percent of batters faced. Williams has now allowed just two runs on six hits over 19 2/3 innings in his last three starts while striking out 33 and walking two. It’s hard to find a pitcher throwing the ball better right now, so you have to just keep rolling him out there.

Williams gave up a solo homer in the first and then wild pitched the second run home in the fifth and that was enough to keep him out of the win column with the Guardians getting shut out. What Williams did do tonight was fan at least 11 batters for the fourth straight outing. He’s just the 24th pitcher (13th different) in major league history to accomplish that. Oddly enough, three of the previous five pitched for Cleveland, Corey Kluber (five in a row in 2017), Trevor Bauer (2018) and Shane Bieber (2021) joined Chris Sale (five in 2018) and Gerrit Cole (five in 2019) in doing it in the last 10 years. Pedro Martinez holds the record, doing it in eight straight starts in 1999. Williams could next face the D’backs on Sunday or the Mets on Tuesday, depending on how the Guardians want to line things up with off days Thursday and Monday.