Gavin Williams, Guardians beat Rays to avoid sweep and end four-game losing streak

CLEVELAND — The Guardians didn't score a lot Wednesday afternoon at Progressive Field. With Gavin Williams on the mound, it wasn't required. Williams continued his stellar start to the season by allowing one unearned run and striking out eight over 7 2/3 innings as Cleveland ended a four-game losing streak and avoided the sweep via a 3-1 win over the Rays. The right-hander didn't walk a batter for the first time in 46 starts and held the opposition to two runs or fewer for the fifth time in seven outings this season. "I keep telling myself I'm stacking them up. The other pitcher had more walks than me again today. It doesn't happen often," Williams said. "I think it's just a running joke for myself, especially coming off last year, leading the league in walks. That's what happens when you pound the zone." "He was just ahead the whole day," manager Stephen Vogt said. "It seemed like every hitter he'd get 0-1. He got a lot of second-pitch outs, got a lot of weak contact. That was pretty special, just the low pitch count, attacking the zone. That was about as good as we've even seen Gavin." "We talk about it all the time, when Gavin throws strikes, that's what you get." It would have been a shutout win, but second baseman Travis Bazzana committed his first error two games into his career that allowed a run to score in the seventh. Williams approached Bazzana in the dugout after the inning. "Even on the field, he was trying to apologize," Williams said. "It's his second game. There's going to be more times like that, and he can't keep thinking about one thing. We're going to need him down the stretch and he's going to have a lot more opportunities in the field to make big plays for us." Tampa Bay managed only two hits off Williams through the first six innings and didn't advance a runner past second. He was on his way to working a season-high eight innings before consecutive base hits from Chandler Simpson and Junior Caminero. "He looked under control from the first inning even until we took him out," Vogt said. Erik Sabrowski replaced Williams and struck out Jonathan Aranda with runners on second and third. The Guardians had hits in five of the first six innings, scoring the game's first run in the third when Brayan Rocchio reached on an infield single and Kyle Manzardo drove him in with a sacrifice fly. Daniel Schneemann struck out with the bases loaded to end the inning but was able to extend his career-high on-base streak to 15 games with two singles. The Guardians have struggled to produce big hits as of late, but they got one from Chase DeLauter, who delivered a two-run single off Rays starter Drew Rasmussen in the fifth after Rocchio reached on an error and advanced to third on a double from Steven Kwan. The two teams combined for five runs in the series. "Offense has been a little scarce for the last week, just for us to come through in the big moments was huge," Vogt said. "We're trying to be simple," Rocchio said. "That's a long season. We know every day (we're not going to hit). We just have to keep it simple, keep doing the little things and the win's going to be there." "Like Roki said, some days we're going to hit, some days we're not," DeLauter said. "And it's just finding ways to get runs in as much as we can." Rocchio, who had his team-leading third three-hit game of the season, reached in all four of his plate appearances and scored two runs. The ninth batter in the order is hitting .385 with 11 RBIs and a .946 OPS over his last 15 games. "He finds a way to get on base. That's his role in the nine hole and he's been doing a great job of it," Vogt said. "I just love where Brayan's at right now." "That's my type of game — get on base, steal bases, run," Rocchio said. "I mean, that's my job. I take the ninth hole as the first batter. I'm trying to keep (getting) on base and get ready for the top of the lineup." A day after going 0-for-2 with two walks in his MLB debut, Bazzana was hitless again, grounding to second in his first two at-bats. He drove a ball just short of the warning track in the sixth an inning before throwing wildly to Rocchio on a double play attempt before popping out in the eighth. The teams, which endured a 1:29 delay prior to first pitch, lost the ABS system in the later innings. "You can nit-pick a couple pitches we may have challenged or they may have challenged, but we played baseball that way for a really long time, so it was just kind of a funny moment," Vogt said Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @CAwesomeheimer on X.