Breaking down Logan Allen’s return to the big leagues (Podcast) (2025)

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Logan Allen had one of the craziest first innings in recent memory during his return to the big leagues Monday, followed by four strong innings that gave the Guardians a chance against Arizona.

On Tuesday’s podcast, Paul Hoynes and Joe Noga look at what went right for Allen and where his next start could come after retiring 13 of the final 14 he faced against the Diamondbacks.

Listen and read along with an AI-generated transcript of the podcast below.

Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.

Joe Noga (00:04):

Welcome back to the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast. I’m Joe Noga, joined by Paul Hoynes Hoy. The Guardian’s fall in extra innings to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first game of their three game series, seven to six in 10 innings. It’s the first Guardian’s home loss in extra innings. This season they had been five and oh prior to that and not the way you want to start off the series and not the way that Logan Allen wanted to start off his return to the major leagues as he comes in and has a rough inning in the first against the Diamondbacks. But the positive thing for Logan Allen is after that rough first inning, he was able to stick it out for five and turn in a pretty good outing after that. Gave the guardians a chance to win. What did you see out of Logan Allen in that first inning and beyond?

Paul Hoynes (01:02):

I think somebody was looking out for Logan last night, Joe, somebody up above, because what he gives up two home runs in his first four pitches, then he gives up a single, then he gives up a double play, then he gets a double play. So he is only down two, nothing. He’s almost out of the inning. And then Randall Criche hits what 105 mile an hour line drive hits him right in the side of the head. And how frightening is that? Just, I mean, it happened so fast and the ball deflected into center field. Just a really, really frightening moment. And for him to come back after that and pitch the way he did really shows. It tells you a lot about the guy.

Joe Noga (01:58):

His competitiveness is always what he sort of hung his hat on and he isn’t the biggest guy out there. He doesn’t throw the hardest. His stuff is really good, but he’s not necessarily the most intimidating pitcher out there on the mount. He’s always had to sort of rely on his guts and his competitiveness and his moxie so far in his big league career and that really served him well. After that first inning, he stays out there, the trainers come out and they check him out and Steven votes says they checked on him throughout the rest of the night. They kept checking on him to make sure that he was okay and he said, I want to stay in there. It was interesting. It was kind of a funny thing he told us after the game was after a month down in Columbus, he’d rather stay out there on the mound and be taking line drives to the head and giving up home runs than be pitching in aaa. So I think this is a kid that will do anything to stay up here. Whether or not that’s going to be the case for him remains to be seen.

Paul Hoynes (03:07):

Yeah, Joe, the way I just thought it was remarkable. I mean, he gets out of that first inning. He retires the last guy on a fly ball in the first inning, then he only gives up one hit the rest of the way through five innings. Just a remarkable recovery and yeah, we just don’t know what this rotation is going to look like, Joe, after they get through these next two games against Arizona. There’s an off day and then there’s a huge series against the twins and they’re really going to have to regroup here.

Joe Noga (03:41):

Yeah, we’ll get into the rotation here in a little bit. Let’s just look back at the rest of the game and how that went. The guardians sort of undaunted, after that first inning by Logan Allen down two, nothing. They come back and they score a pair in the bottom of the first to tie the game and sort of tell Logan, Hey, we got your back here. They go on to take the lead in the second inning. And really the offense was looking like you’re getting contributions now from guys like Andre Jimenez. Steven Kwan had another multi Hitt game. Josh Naor had his what, eight game hitting streaks snapped last night. But Jose Ramirez, another three hits and a couple of stolen bases. The Guardian’s offense looking more like the Guardian’s Offense last night against Arizona. These are two teams that are very similar.

Paul Hoynes (04:43):

Yeah, it’s good to see Cleveland that has that kind of that punch back ability again. We’ve seen it. We saw it a couple times over the weekend against the ORs. I think a big key to that is Jimenez. He is got what a career high 10 game hitting streak going. He had three hits last night, drove in, had a big two run single in the six inning to put ‘em back on top. The concern is, Joe, that there was two blown saves in that game. One by Cade Smith and one by Scott Barlow and very, very guardians like from a bullpen aspect that they really kind of led Arizona right back in the game and it eventually cost ‘em the game when they wanted in 10 innings against Emmanuel Class A. And it was the second game in a row where we’ve seen the bullpen really kind of fail to stop the opposition. And you wonder, Joe, I mean is this all the work and the innings and the stress that this bullpen has been under dealing with the short rotation, is it finally catching up them?

Joe Noga (05:57):

Yeah, having to cover five innings or four or five innings a night is really starting to, looks like it’s starting to wear on the bullpen a little bit more than we’re used to seeing Kate Smith comes in the sixth inning and you’re thinking, okay, well this game just got shortened to three more innings because Kate Smith is automatic. He really worked in that sixth innings, one of the few times that we’ve seen him really not be sharp and not be a guy who comes in there, gets a few punch outs and gets out of there without really any damage happening. Again, I don’t expect that the next time we see Cade Smith that that’s going to be the case, but it’s sort of an unknown because he is a rookie. We don’t know what’s too much or how much use is too much for him, how many innings are too much for him? We just have to wait and see how he responds coming back after an outing like that.

Paul Hoynes (06:59):

Yeah, he gives up what three hits in the sixth. Josh Bell who faced him, I believe in Miami earlier this year, started that the inning with the singles. So maybe Josh had kind of a scouting report on C Smith and passing along to his teammates, bell gets the hit, then Jake McCarthy gets a hit, then a double by Suarez. It was just, he really couldn’t get any momentum going in the inning and is a kind of a shock because he has been so dominant and I mean nobody’s perfect every time out and so you got to look at it that way. But the weight of the season, we’re 112 games into it right now. There’s over 50 games still left or 50 games still left. So you have to start looking at that now because like you said, Joe, it’s impossible to ask a bullpen to cover four and five innings a game. It just doesn’t work. And especially when your key guys are being run out there almost every night.

Joe Noga (08:18):

And Kate Smith, Scott Barlow, Tim Heron, hunter Gaddis, and e Emmanuel Classe especially. These are guys who have given us unrealistic expectations of how a bullpen is supposed to perform to this point in the season. And we will see what steps Carl Willis, Brad Goldberg, Stephen v take to maybe prolong and preserve their arms for the stretch run in these last 50 games and hopefully a playoff as well. We’ll see what developments happen there. I want to talk about Bo Naer two hits last night. He had a triple and scored the tying run in the ninth inning, therefore the guardians, the force extra innings, just what did you see out of nailer? And he’s again, continued to swing a pretty hot bat here in the last month or so.

Paul Hoynes (09:26):

Yeah, we keep seeing good signs from Bo Joe. I just wish I’d seen him in the lineup a little more. I think in the second inning he gets a big single up the middle to score Himenez to put the guardians on top three to two. Then like you said, just misses the home run in the ninth inning, triple high off the wall and left center field. He’s got some pop and then Daniel Schneeman brings him home with a sacrifice fly who’s tied the game in force extra inning. So you’re right, Bo is starting to swing the bat a little better. Had a stolen base in the second inning, so hopefully he’s trending in the right direction here.

Joe Noga (10:17):

Yeah, Naylor had a stolen base. Jose Ramirez, I read this stat from the Guardian’s PR in the post game notes, and I thought this was kind of strange. Jose with multiple stolen bases for the second consecutive game became the first Cleveland player to steal multiple bases in consecutive games since Omar Viscal in on August 7th, 1997. To me that’s crazy that they haven’t had multiple guy steel multiple bases in consecutive games in that long of a stretch. And Jose, obviously the engine that sort of drives the offense, but the way that they’ve been running the bases lately has been pretty much a clinic. The last couple of games,

Paul Hoynes (11:14):

They stole five bases against Baltimore in Sunday on Sunday in that nine to five loss. But burns, I mean everybody steals on this guy. I mean, they had his number and they were just running wild out there. It didn’t help him win the game, but it certainly, I think it discombobulated the starting pitcher. And Jose’s got a shot for 30 30 or a legit shot, don’t you think, Joe?

Joe Noga (11:40):

Yeah, I think, and that might be something that’s on his list to check off for goals there. Chance to get to that 30 home run and 30 steel plateau certainly for Jose. At this point I want to remind our listeners if Jose is going for that 30 30 mark, the best way to follow the chase is with Guardian subtext. We’ll have updates for our followers there. It’s 3 99 a month. To subscribe, go to cleveland.com/subtext or send a text message to 2 6 2 0 8 4 3 4 6 to sign up there. Get text messages sent directly to your phone from Hoey and from me throughout the remainder of the season and all through the out season regarding subtext Zi, one thing that we mentioned at the top and is sort of a big, it’s the 800 pound gorilla in the room that we don’t really know which way things are going to go with this starting rotation.

(12:45):

We have an idea that Alex Cobb could be joining them for one of the two games on Friday in Minnesota as they open up a big series against the Twins. The twins now three and a half games back in the American League Central. They’ve won what, five in a row for the twins. So just a huge series there. The starting pitching is going to be very important right now. Cobb looks like he’s in line to start one of the two games. We don’t know who will start the other game of that double header and we don’t know where guys like Logan Allen, Matthew Boyd, Joey possibly fit in the equation for what the starting rotation’s going to look like in the near future. It all kind of depends on what’s going to happen with Tanner Bibe as he continues to deal with stiffness in his shoulder. He was set to throw on the side yesterday and a bullpen might be the next step for him. What’s the latest on Tanner Bibe and when he might be ready to go for the Guardians?

Paul Hoynes (13:55):

Yeah, Joe, I think it’s up in the air. I mean Steven Vo, the manager didn’t seem all that concerned. He thought he was on the right track, but he said he still has to check some boxes to get him back in that rotation. He hasn’t pitched since July 29th against the Tigers and he missed Saturday start against Baltimore with the Sow right, or the stiff right shoulder. And so the jury’s still out on him even though Joe, I don’t know. I mean, okay, you play catch on Monday, when would you throw a bullpen? Tomorrow maybe if you’re cleared and you throw a bullpen, then what? You go two days, maybe three days for your next start. So he could be in line this coming weekend against the twins, but I’m not exactly where that lines up. And Joe, you can bring up with the double header, right? You can add a 27th Man with a day nighter, double header.

Joe Noga (14:59):

Right.

Paul Hoynes (15:00):

What about Tristan Mackenzie? Could you bring Mackenzie up and have him start one of those games he’s coming off that finally had a good performance at aaa? What? 11 strikeouts and six, seven innings, whatever it was that was encouraging?

Joe Noga (15:17):

Yeah, an encouraging sign. I think when Steven V was asked about it, he says, that’s great and we got to see more of that kind of consistency out of him. I don’t know if Mackenzie would line up to make one of those starts. I think can might be on regular rest to do that if they wanted to recall him to be the 27th man for that doubleheader. But I don’t know. I don’t know who you would want more in that spot. What kind of message are you sending Mackenzie if he’s only up as the 27th man and then optioned right back down? That’s kind of not the ideal situation. I think maybe let Tristan stay down there and continue to work and show again that he can come out and post those kind of numbers and have that kind of performance if that’s going to be the case. So yeah, I don’t know if Mackenzie would be the answer there, but I’ve certainly been wrong about stuff like that before. As far as just the way that the twins are sort of creeping up and creeping back into the race here in the American League Central, what do you make of what they’ve been able to do over the last few games to sort of narrow the gap?

Paul Hoynes (16:44):

Well, they just hung around Joe. They didn’t do a whole lot at the trade deadline. They added one reliever from Toronto. But other than that they’ve just, they’ve won five straight, they’ve stayed in contact with the guardians. They’ve never really been, what, six and half? I think probably six and a half. More than six and a half out and over the last few weeks here. I know it was at one time I think the Guardians had a nine game lead. But they’ve stayed. They stayed around, they’ve hung around. The guardians have had a chance to put ‘em away. They haven’t. And now you’re going into a target field for a four game series that may decide you could see a change at the top of the division.

Joe Noga (17:38):

Yeah, might flip the standings there by the end of the weekend, but two more against the Diamondbacks Before we get to that point, Ben Lively going for The Guardians tonight. He faces Eduardo Rodriguez who’s been activated and going to be coming in for his first start of the season, left-Hander, the guardian’s, kind of familiar with him from the last several seasons and his time in Detroit. So Eduardo Rodriguez, Ben Lively tonight at Progressive Field. What can we expect out of the Guardians and probably their most consistent picture in Lively to this point this season.

Paul Hoynes (18:21):

Yeah, the guardians are throwing a lifeline to Ben Lively tonight, Joe. They need some help. And Ben has delivered all season long. He leads him in 10 wins. He’s second in innings pitched. He’s coming off a win against Baltimore. He’s like you said, he’s been their most consistent starter. But Rodriguez is a guy that has haunted Cleveland. He’s six and oh Lifetime against him for and oh last year. We just don’t know where he’s at physically. He hasn’t pitched. He got hurt in the middle of March in spring training after signing a four year $80 million contract with Arizona and he hasn’t pitched since. So big question mark around this guy. But he has on the back of his baseball card, he has dominated Cleveland and I’m sure the guardians hitters know that.

Joe Noga (19:20):

Alright, well we’ll check out what they’re able to do against Rodriguez tonight and we’ll talk about it tomorrow morning on the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast coins and we’ll check in with you then.

Paul Hoynes (19:31):

Good deal, Joe.

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