Josh Naylor, Steven Kwan and the Guardians keep it rolling with a 6-3 win over the A's

CLEVELAND — Standing 5-foot-11 and weighing in at 230 pounds, Josh Naylor has the frame of a football player. It turns out he already has the end zone celebration down. Naylor hit a go-ahead home run off left-hander Alex Wood in the fifth inning Saturday as the first-place Guardians kept rolling by beating Oakland 6-3 at Progressive Field. After connecting on a two-run blast that carried an estimated 410 feet to right-center, Naylor smashed the bat off the top of his helmet before spiking it emphatically in front of the A's dugout as he made his way to first base. "That's Josh Naylor, man," said Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt. "He's obviously emotional and charismatic. As long as he didn't concuss himself, I'm all right." "That's the competitor that comes in," left fielder Steven Kwan said of his teammate. "He gets to that point and he just blacks out and it's just pure baseball passion. That's Josh Naylor right there. "I think it fires us up. I think he does that when he feels like things are getting stale on the field and he tries to fire us up. In a roundabout way, that's his team leadership and the way he kind of guides the ship. We couldn't do this thing without him." It was the team-leading sixth homer for Naylor, who is off to a sizzling start, batting .329 with 17 RBIs and a team-high 1.030 OPS over 20 games. The DH added an RBI single to give the Guardians an insurance run in the seventh. "It was a cool moment, but it was for the boys," Naylor said of the homer. "That's all I really play for." Cleveland, which entered the game having posted its best record after the first 20 games since 1995, improved to 15-6, breaking a tie with the Yankees for the best record in the American League. Starting pitcher Logan Allen cruised through the first four innings, holding Oakland without a hit and striking out three, but there was trouble on the horizon. The left-hander began the fifth by allowing a home run to Shea Langeliers to break up the no-hitter, then two batters later surrendered another homer to Max Scheumann that tied the game at 2. "He really battled," Vogt said of Allen, who allowed three runs on five hits over 5 2/3 innings. "He had a hard time getting a feel for his spin. He had a hard time finding the cutter, which has been a really good pitch for him, but he was making pitches when he needed to, getting out of trouble. I couldn't be more proud of the way he battled to get us as deep into the game as he did." Naylor and the Guardians had Allen's back with response runs in the bottom of the fifth to forge ahead for good at 4-2. "Logan gave up a few (runs) and we told him, 'We'll pick you up, don't worry about it.' I think that's just our mentality as a team," Naylor said. "If we get punched, we punch back." Cleveland struck early, scoring twice in the opening inning on doubles from Jose Ramirez and Ramon Laureano. Kwan recorded his 10th multihit game of the season and major league-leading sixth three-hit game, adding a fourth in the eighth inning. He is the first Cleveland player with at least six three-hit games in the first 21 games since Lou Boudreau's six in 1948. "I'm just trusting the plan, trying to stick with it and things have panned out," Kwan said. "What Kwany's doing right now is pretty special," Vogt said. "It's just really fun to watch. He gets us going every time up there it seems like." Kwan's 33 games with three hits or more since the start of the 2022 season rank second in the AL behind Houston's Jose Altuve and fourth in the majors. It marks the sixth time in his career that Kwan has notched four hits. "He's the best leadoff hitter in the game," Naylor said. "He's incredible. He's a professional. He takes professional at-bats. He knows how to use the whole entire field. His work ethic is incredible. "He's great leader. He's an incredible player and I hope to play with him my whole career. I love that guy. He's like a brother to me. I respect the hell out of him, and I just can't wait to see where he goes with his career." Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @CAwesomeheimer on Twitter.