Guardians option starting pitcher to minors making room for recent trade acquisition.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Guardians starting pitcher Logan Allen is heading to Triple-A Columbus one day after the left-hander posted a season-high nine strikeouts in Cleveland’s 4-2 win against the Giants at Progressive Field.
Cleveland optioned Allen, 25, prior to Sunday’s series finale. The move clears a spot on the 26-man roster and in the starting rotation for righty Spencer Howard, acquired in a trade from San Francisco on Friday. Howard, 27, was 1-1 with a 5.63 ERA in seven appearances including two starts for the Giants this season.
In 18 starts for the Guardians, Allen was 8-4 with a 5.67 ERA and a 1.546 WHIP over 87 1/3 innings. He struck out 76 batters and walked 35. Last season, Allen was 7-8 in 24 starts with a 112 ERA+. Though he is tied with Ben Lively for the team lead in wins this year, Allen’s ERA+, was 29% below league average at 71.
Manager Stephen Vogt said telling Allen he was being sent down was a tough conversation to have, especially since the lefty has been such a big part of the club’s success so far this year.
“It’s an opportunity for Logan to go down and get some consistency back,” Vogt said. “We’ve seen it where he’ll have one outing where he is out there, he’s efficient, he’s filling up the strike zone, he goes six innings. Then he’ll have one where it kind of struggles, a lot of pitches, struggles to find the strike zone and doesn’t quite make it that far.”
The key for Allen will be working on refining his delivery. Vogt said the organization felt this was a good time for him to take a step back and gather himself.
“He understands that he needs to go deeper into games and be more consistent with strike throwing,” Vogt said. “He recognized that, and we know he’s going to go down and work extremely hard and diligent to get back.”
