CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Guardians are one of the hottest teams in baseball going into today’s home opener against the San Francisco Giants, and they just got reinforcements. Ten months after a severe ankle injury ended his 2021 season, Guardians slugger Josh Naylor has been activated off the Injured List. Naylor will return to the starting lineup in tonight’s game against the Giants batting 7th and playing first base.
In a corresponding move the team has optioned pitcher Konnor Pikington to Triple-A Columbus. Pikington made the team out of spring training but has not appeared in a game so far this season.
Naylor played in 69 of the team’s 74 games in 2021, with a .253 batting average and seven home runs before the ankle injury. On June 27 at Target Field in a game against the Minnesota Twins, Naylor was in right field when a shallow fly ball caused a collision between Naylor and second baseman Ernie Clement.
Naylor returns to a lineup that leads the league in many major offensive categories as of tonight’s opener including runs, hits, triples, RBI, batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS.
Naylor spoke to reporters last month and talked about this past offseason which was in his words his “favorite offseason ever”.
“It gave me time to sit back and really see the world from a different view, see myself from a different view,” said Naylor during a March spring training interview. “This was a huge lesson in disguise for me to control my emotions better, control my direction, control how fast I play a game.”
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