Williams falters in first start since near no-hitter

CLEVELAND -- Gavin Williams returned to the mound on Wednesday for the first time since his near no-hitter Aug. 6 against the Mets.

There was not an encore performance in store for the Guardians’ right-hander.

Williams surrendered four runs on five hits (including a pair of homers) and a walk over three innings in the Guardians’ 13-4 loss to the Marlins at Progressive Field. He threw 75 pitches.

The Guardians surrendered 17 hits, tied with April 28 vs. the Twins for their season high. They fell to 6 1/2 games behind the Tigers in the American League Central and remain a game behind the Yankees for the final AL Wild Card spot.

Williams had two extra days of rest between starts after his performance in New York, where he no-hit the Mets for 8 1/3 innings and tossed a career-high 126 pitches. The Guardians were off on Aug. 7 and Monday.

Williams was unwilling to use his previous outing’s workload as an excuse.

“I threw 126 pitches last outing, so the whole body was a little fatigued,” Williams said. “But it's still no excuse. I went out there and pitched today. No matter what, I should have done better than what I did.”

The Guardians and Williams felt good about him taking the mound Wednesday, certainly given the rest he had.

“Our training staff obviously has been on top of him,” manager Stephen Vogt said pregame. “[Pitching coach] Carl [Willis has] been working with him. He waited to throw his bullpen until he felt he was 100 percent ready.

“... He feels good and ready to go.”

The Marlins jumped on Williams early, scoring four runs in the first. Xavier Edwards hit a leadoff home run and Jakob Marsee added a three-run blast. Williams needed 33 pitches to get through the frame, his most in a first inning in any start this season.

Williams kept Miami off the board the next two innings, but he threw 19 pitches in the second and 23 in the third before his exit.

The homer Williams surrendered to Edwards came in a 3-2 count, when he threw a 97 mph four-seam fastball over the middle of the plate. Marsee’s three-run blast came off an 86.4 mph sweeper that hung up in the zone. Williams said it was supposed to be down.

“I think early on, Gavin obviously got some fastballs over the middle,” Vogt said postgame. “They didn't offer at his curveball [much]. They were spitting on it right out of his hand. I thought his stuff actually looked pretty sharp. But he just made some mistakes, got into some bad counts, and they made him pay for it.”

To Vogt’s point, the Marlins swung at just four of the 18 curveballs Williams threw (22.2 percent). That is the lowest opposing swing rate against his curve this season, among the 22 of his 24 outings in which he threw it 10 or more times.

It was also only his third start this season in which he had a sub-30 percent swing rate against his curveball (minimum 10 thrown).

Williams’ emergence over the past few months has been one of the most promising developments of the Guardians’ season. He had posted a 2.36 ERA in 72 1/3 innings over his previous 12 starts since June 1 and a 1.63 ERA in 38 2/3 innings over his last six.

He and the Guardians will quickly turn the page.

“Extra rest after the last outing, it should have helped a little bit more than what it did,” Williams said. “But it didn't. We'll get better from there.”

Williams had an uncharacteristic night, as did the Guardians’ bullpen, which entered the day first in the Majors with a 2.21 ERA since July 1.

Kolby Allard was charged with two runs on three hits in 1 2/3 innings; Marsee hit a two-run homer off him in the fifth. Matt Festa was charged with five runs on five hits (including a Graham Pauley homer in the sixth) over 1 1/3 innings.

Since July 1, Allard had a 2.30 ERA in 15 2/3 innings over nine appearances, and Festa had a 2.25 ERA in 16 innings over 17 appearances. Their contributions have been key for a bullpen that collectively has stepped up after Emmanuel Clase was placed on non-disciplinary paid leave on July 28 amid an MLB investigation.

“These are one-offs. It’s not who we are,” Vogt said of the loss. “So credit to them. They swung the bats excellent tonight."