Luis Ortiz dominates Royals as Guardians roll to fifth straight win

CLEVELAND — The Guardians are hoping this is the real Luis Ortiz, not the guy who was miserable all spring and went 0-2 with an 8.44 ERA over his first two outings. The right-hander — acquired from the Pirates in an offseason trade — offered up easily his best performance with his new team Saturday night at Progressive Field, as the Guardians rolled to a 6-3 victory over the Royals. Cleveland won its fifth straight and goes for the sweep today. Ortiz made only one mistake, which resulted in a Vinnie Pasquantino home run. He allowed just that run on one hit over 5 2/3 innings, while striking out a career-high 10 batters in his first win for Cleveland against a Central Division rival. "It feels like it's really important to dominate and compete against this team," Ortiz said of the Royals through an interpreter. "They have a really good lineup. That's my mindset — try to compete, attack the zone. That's what I had set up for today, 'I have to dominate, I have to compete,' and that's what I was able to do." "The strike throwing, he was ahead," manager Stephen Vogt said of Ortiz, who threw 100 pitches — 64 for strikes. "He got weak contact. Obviously, the 10 punch outs, but they were efficient. They weren't six- seven-, eight-pitch punch outs. It was four to five. The way he commanded the baseball today, he had all his pitches going. "Hard work pays off. Luis has been working really hard to find that consistency that we know, and he knows, that he has. We talked about it at the beginning of spring training. The sky's the limit for Luis." Ortiz left the mound to a rousing ovation, acknowledging fans by tipping his cap en route to the dugout. "It felt great," he said of the moment. "I felt like at that time I had done what I wanted to do, just helped the team as much as I could, going long into the game. It's always for the fans, especially my family. They always support me from the stands." Ortiz walked the second batter of the game then retired nine straight before Pasquantino scored the first run of the night with one out in the fourth. The Guardians answered right back against Royals starter Michael Lorenzen in the bottom of the inning on a two-out single up the middle from Gabriel Arias. They forged ahead for good in the fifth when Bo Naylor and Brayan Rocchio reached on consecutive singles and Jose Ramirez scored Naylor on a sacrifice fly deep to the warning track in center. Arias, who had three hits in the series-opening win Friday night, provided some insurance with his third home run — a solo shot that traveled an estimated 389 feet to right-center. Fighting to keep the job at second base, Arias had two hits and drove in two runs, going deep for the second straight night. "The focus that Gabby has right now, he's just playing," Vogt said. "He's relaxed. He's having a good time. He's locked in at the plate and locked in on defense. This is a really fun Gabby Arias to watch." Cleveland has homered in four straight games and seven of its last eight. The Guardians put the game away in the eighth when they loaded the bases with no outs and Angel Martinez just missed a grand slam on a two-run ground-rule double that got stuck high on the wall in left field. It's a good thing they did, because Cleveland endured another shaky appearance from closer Emmanuel Clase, who allowed two runs in the ninth. Clase surrendered singles to each of the first four batters he faced before retiring the next three. "Just pitches over the middle. He's just missing over the middle right now," Vogt said. "It's too early to tell. I know Emmanuel just needs to get his confidence back. He needs to go out there, know that's he's the best pitcher on the planet and go right after these guys with his best stuff. Right now, he's getting hit a little bit." Clase's ERA is 7.71 over his first seven appearances. He's already allowed more earned runs (six) than he did all of last season (five), surrendering 14 hits over seven innings. Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him on X @CAwesomeheimer.