Naylor homers in 2nd straight: 'He's battling'

CLEVELAND -- After teeing off on a 95.5 mph fastball in the seventh inning on Wednesday, Bo Naylor did a 180-degree spin within the left-hander’s batter’s box. He didn’t need to watch the trajectory of the fly ball he hit deep into the night to know where it was headed.

Naylor’s three-run homer off right-hander Brock Stewart helped launch the Guardians to a 4-2 win over the Twins at Progressive Field. It was a clutch swing by Cleveland’s catcher, who hit the Statcast-projected 398-foot blast with two outs in a 2-2 count.

It also marked the second straight game Naylor went deep; he hit a solo homer in the third inning of Tuesday’s 2-1 win over Minnesota.

“The feeling off the bat,” Naylor said, “just like when everything syncs up perfectly and you catch it on the barrel, it’s beautiful, to put it in one word.”

Naylor entered Wednesday with a .185/.280/.354 slash line in 20 games this season, though he’s been hitting the ball hard, as his underlying metrics have shown. Through 20 games, his barrel percentage was 9.8 percent, up from 8.1 percent in 2024.

He’s also been hitting the ball on the ground less (29.4 percent) than last season (36 percent). His strikeout rate (21.1 percent) is in a much better place than ‘24 (31.4).

Naylor’s expected slugging percentage entering Wednesday was .406 (43rd percentile in the Majors). That’s a significant jump from last season (.326 expected slugging percentage -- seventh percentile). All said, he’s hit the ball hard and not gotten rewarded perhaps as much as he should.

“In those times when the results might not be there,” Naylor said, “it's just a matter of continuing to go out there, prepare, do the work behind the scenes to make sure that you're always being ready for your at-bats, any opportunity there is to be able to impact the game.

“It’s just a matter of keeping the mind in the right place and then celebrating when things go right.”

Naylor hit a solo homer on Tuesday, off the ninth pitch of his third-inning plate appearance, and he delivered another stellar at-bat on Wednesday. Stewart threw him three consecutive four-seam fastballs, and Naylor fouled off each one. He then took a four-seamer inside for a ball, fouled another one off and then took a changeup down and inside for ball 2.

Stewart came back with a four-seamer over the middle of the plate. Naylor didn’t miss it.

“What we're seeing is just a more consistent at-bat,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “The weak contact early outs aren't there. He's fouling pitches off. He's battling. Both homers, [Tuesday] night and tonight, he spoiled some really good pitches to get the one that he could handle, and that’s the mark of a really good hitter.

“We all know Bo has it in him. It's great to see homers, it's great to see results. But just the quality of at-bat for Bo over the last, it seems like a couple weeks now, has just been trending in the right direction.”

Naylor’s trending in the right direction at the plate, and he’s been a steady presence behind it too. One of the first things Vogt noted during his postgame media session was how Naylor has started five straight days for the Twins at catcher.

“For him to have his legs under him in the seventh inning of the fifth day in a row just speaks to how well he takes care of his body and stays in the moment,” Vogt said.

Vogt later smiled and noted Naylor is going to have a “much earned day off” on Thursday.

Naylor’s big swing backed a strong start by right-hander Luis Ortiz, who threw 6 1/3 scoreless innings and allowed just three hits and two walks while striking out five. It marked both Ortiz’s longest start and his first scoreless outing in a Guardians uniform.

Ortiz’s strong performance followed Tanner Bibee allowing one run in seven innings on Tuesday. It’s the first time Cleveland has had back to back starts of at least 6 1/3 innings in nearly a year. Carlos Carrasco (seven innings) and Triston McKenzie (6 2/3 innings) pulled it off on May 10-11, 2024.

With a long stretch of games going on, Ortiz knew it was key to follow Bibee’s strong outing with one of his own to ease the bullpen’s workload.

“We have a long string of games going on,” Ortiz said through interpreter Agustin Rivero. “I feel like what I needed to do was go deep as much as [Bibee] did and attack the zone the way he did.”