Guardians breaking news: Jose Ramirez is back

Our long, national nightmare is over – Jose Ramirez returns to play baseball for the Cleveland Guardians tonight.

The team’s reporters announced this afternoon that Kahlil Watson would be optioned to Columbus while Jose was activated from the IL. There were some bright spots for Watson in his debut – he had a week of great hitting that the team sorely needed, he played exceptional defense and showed himself to be quite a competitor – but he ended up with a 67 wRC+, a 35% chase rate, and a 17% whiff rate. He now can see that he’s going to have to learn some additional plate discipline to earn himself some pitches to hit and then not miss those pitches in order to make a major league career happens. He’s only 23 years old so additional growth and development is certainly possible. The team choosing Petey Halpin to remain makes sense not only because of Halpin’s 2-homer game on Monday but because being a little older and having a little bit of a lower ceiling makes it a little more justifiable to have Halpin on the bench if need be. It will be interesting to see what the next move will be when Angel Martinez returns. It should probably be a David Fry or Kyle Manzardo demotion… but I won’t hold my breath. I suspect it may turn out to be Daniel Schneemann or Petey Halpin who heads to Columbus when Angel is ready to take flight.

Back to Jose – somehow, this team managed to go 15-15 since June 14th, having lost Jose, Chase DeLauter and Angel Martinez on the day prior. It was touch and go at several points, but I think managing a .500 record without their best player and team leader is, ultimately, impressive, even as much as a better performance seems like it was possible. Jose returns tonight to the 2nd spot in the lineup and to third base, pushing Gabriel Arias, who managed to do a good fill-in job minus some absolutely mind-melting moments at the plate and on the bases, to a bench role. Jose returns with a 110 wRC+ on the season but a .354 xwOBA which is his highest number in three seasons. Jose also was playing great defense at third base and had 24 steals when he broke his hamate.

It’s unlikely that we will now see peak Jose in the lineup. Recovery from a broken hamate and the resulting surgery generally has pretty noticeable effects on a player’s power. But, we know that Jose will immediately be a pest to opposing pitchers in the lineup, making his preternatural amount of contact, and displaying relentless hustle on the bases. I think what I missed the most this past 5 weeks was the knowledge that my team has an absolute shark on it who when he smells any kind of blood in the water in terms of the opposing team’s weakness will be on it in a blink of an eye and not give up until he is satisfied he’s given his all for his team to win.

I don’t particularly want to imagine the day that Jose retires. I just so immensely enjoy watching him play baseball. But, the past five weeks were a welcome reminder of how much I need to appreciate every moment we have with the Bat from Bani, Shohei Ohtani’s Favorite Baseball Player, the Motor Mouth of Mashing, our Pulled-Fly Ball Prince. It won’t be long before he’s chirping his players, his opponents and giving 100% in every second he’s on a baseball field, and it will never be long enough for him to do all that in a Guardians’ uniform.

In case you are wondering, Jose will be very unlikely to set any more franchise records this season, but he can inch closer to Jim Thome in home runs (42 ahead of Jose), Tris Speaker in doubles (62 ahead of Jose), and the outside chance of catching Kenny Lofton in steals (141 ahead of Jose). He will need 10 more home runs to extend his streak of eight full seasons in a row with 20 or more homers.

I pinch myself sometimes to be reminded it wasn’t a dream that Jose signed an extension this Spring that will keep him here, in Cleveland, for his whole career. He’s ours, guys, no one else’s and I can’t wait to see what he and this team can do to make the ending of this season special for every Cleveland baseball fan and people who love good, hard-nosed baseball from all over the world.

Welcome back, Jose. You have been missed.