Commentary: Chase DeLauter looks like the slugger Guardians have been chasing for years

Welcome to Progressive Field, home of Chase DeLauter. Captain Home Run threw a victory party Friday by hitting another home run, and it's fair to say The Golden Boy has arrived. Just ask the Chicago Cubs, who were DeLautered in a 4-1 Guardians victory over the Chicago Cubs. Especially with DeLauter chasing pitchers off the mound. Indeed, the rookie slugger looks like the slugger the slugger-challenged Guardians have been looking for since DeLauter was in diapers. Translation: the plot is thickening, and we're not even out of April yet. Somebody tell the Guards' Big Bopper. They held one of those puppies at Progressive Field on Friday, and you will never guess who the opponent was. That's right: The Chicago Baseball Cubs who, once upon a time but really not that long ago won Game 7 of the World Series, right here on Cleveland's own home turf. Guardians fans, however, are over that disappointment, even though they are not. Mostly because Opening Day stands alone. That's right: In the history of Opening Days, Baseball's Opening Day dwarfs the field. Why is that? Because Baseball starts in the spring, and who doesn't like starting something in the spring? For crying out loud, it has been snowing all winter. For one thing, you don't have to go around asking strangers what Opening Day is because, well, it just is. Now we've got DeLauter as a Chaser? That's what makes baseball so great. It was made for Opening Days, just as Opening Days were made for sluggers named DeLauter. The Kid Clubber is on a dinger rampage, and the season has barely even started. How much more havoc will he wreak once he gets used to the league and its pitchers? When a new slugger starts slugging like this, who cares about the incidentals? The Guardians have been looking for a long-ball specialist for decades. Has their ship finally come in? Time will tell, and it should be a good time for Guardians officials and customers to sit back and enjoy the show. Never underestimate what a rookie slugger can do, particularly at the start of the season. Baseball is like that sometimes. and baseball was made for Opening Day. Sure enough, in the history of Opening Days, nobody has ever wondered what Opening Day is. On the plush-to-a-fault sporting green of Progressive Field on Friday, the Guardians and Cubs Guardiansed and Cubs-ed each other it as well as they could, because it was Cleveland's first home game of the season, and that calls for performance levels above and beyond the standard run-of-the-mill defensive ballplaying. Everybody knows about Opening Day, and what is expected from these professional ballers. Who doesn't like opening day? Especially when the home team is at home and so is his team. Is there not a more welcome and longed for outcome than that? Well, yes. There is. Fans are funny that way. If a certain team, playing at home for the first time since last October, isn't measuring up to what is the first home game of the season, played before a fan base that is potentially a team to be reckoned with. If all that wasn't enough, there was also the not-so-comfortable performance by the home team's hitters, who continue to lack enough sock to consistently produce consistent performances. On the other hand, it's still early, of course. The season is just getting underway. Given Friday's final score, that may or may not be something worth worrying about. What matters most now is that the Guardians finally have a bonafide slugger who propels baseballs into parts of the ballpark that are rarely visited by hitters. Then along comes this kid, who never saw a right-field bleacher that he couldn't reach. DeLauter is that, and pitchers throughout the league will learn the hard way. There will be plenty of things to worry about later this season. One the plus side, the Guardians' new Golden Boy, DeLauter, singled in the fourth inning. This being the start of the baseball season, baseball fans, especially baseball fans of a certain team that hasn't won a World Series in forever, are entitled to feel however they feel about the current state of the current hometown team. There are good days and bad days, whether it's the beginning of the season or the end of the season, whether DeLauter drives in a few more runs, or hits a few more home runs. The Guardians are still a very young team trying very hard to become a better team. Better yet, they are now being led by a prodigious slugger who could be the long-ball specialist the franchise has craved for years. Contact Jim Ingraham at jingraham4@gmail.com.