Tanner Bibee, Josh Naylor help Guardians shut out Mariners, 8-0

CLEVELAND — Tanner Bibee dealt and Josh Naylor delivered Wednesday night at Progressive Field. In his first career start against the Mariners, Bibee tossed six scoreless innings and struck out a career-high 12 batters, while Naylor hit two homers and drove in four runs, as first-place Cleveland evened its series against first-place Seattle by shutting out the Mariners 8-0. Seattle entered the night with seven wins in its last eight games in Cleveland. Bibee, who allowed only three hits, was on fire early, striking out seven of the first 10 batters he faced. He had 10 strikeouts through five innings, recording a double-digit total for the second straight start and second time in his career. "Big time pitchers step up when the bullpen's light and it's exactly what Tanner did tonight," manager Stephen Vogt said. "He gave us six solid innings, allowed us to not have to stretch the pen even thinner. It was a good rebound game for us from (Tuesday night's 8-5 loss). "The punch outs were efficient tonight. You looked at the (11) punch outs in Cincinnati (last Wednesday), they were there, but they weren't quite as efficient as tonight. The one inning where they made him work (in the fourth), he got out of it. That's a good lineup over there and he navigated it really well." Bibee didn't allow a baserunner to reach third. "I was definitely in a rhythm," he said. "I feel like, especially when certain pitches are working how I want them to, it's nice. The breaking balls, cutter, slider, slurve ... I think they were all doing really good and it really, really helped, for sure. It really kind of got them off the heater, and then towards the end I kind of flip-flopped it and they didn't really know what was coming." Steven Kwan began the night by extending his streak of reaching base to a career-high 24 games with a leadoff walk in the opening inning off RHP Bryan Woo, who entered with a sparkling 1.07 ERA over seven starts. Kwan extended his hitting streak to 13 games with his fifth homer in the second — a drive off the right-field foul pole — raising his slugging percentage to .714 in 49 at-bats since leaving the injured list May 31. He has added power to his repertoire this season. "It makes him a complete hitter," Vogt said of Kwan, who only hit five homers last year. "It's tough to get him out because you have to throw it in the zone and he doesn't swing and miss very often, so you got to make pitches against him. He's just becoming more and more a complete hitter, with showing power. He doesn't try to hit for power, but when it's in his damage zone, he's getting the barrel to it." "I feel like there's not really many people like him," Bibee said of Kwan, who reached in three of his four trips to the plate. "I feel like the only comparable one is kind of (San Diego's Luis) Arraez, but Steve's got some juice and that's what he shot off tonight. He's one of a kind." Naylor, who entered the night hitting under .200 since May 1, took it out on the baseball in the fifth, crushing a 3-0 pitch from reliever Mike Baumann an estimated 397 feet into the right-field seats to put the Guardians in front 6-0. His second homer came in the seventh to the bullpen seats in center on a 3-2 fastball from Eduardo Bazardo. It was Naylor's fourth career multihomer game and second of the season. "Sometimes you fail and sometimes you fail for a little bit," Naylor said. "And I think that's just the name of the game. It's a hard game. You got some phenomenal pitchers on each team and phenomenal bullpen arms on each team. "Sometimes you fail a lot and it's just up to you to learn about it and figure it out from there. So, I take failure as a blessing. Obviously, failing is not fun. It sucks, but sometimes you have to take the positives out of the little things and it just helps you grow a little bit." Seattle's frustration against Bibee came to a peak in the fifth when leadoff hitter J.P. Crawford was ejected after being rung up by home plate umpire Doug Eddings to end the inning. Crawford, who struck out three times in three at-bats, went nose-to-nose with Eddings — pointing in his face — and had to be restrained by manager Scott Servais and third base coach Manny Acta. Servais took over the argument and was also tossed. The Mariners didn't get a hit after the fifth inning. Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @CAwesomeheimer on X.