This story was excerpted from Tim Stebbins’s Guardians Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
ATLANTA -- Guardians first baseman Kyle Manzardo did not recall the last time he hit a home run as far as the one he crushed Friday at Truist Park. It was understandable: His 454-foot solo homer off Braves starter Bryce Elder in the fourth inning was the longest he’s hit in the big leagues.
The blast felt good for Manzardo; it was his first of the 2026 season. That also meant it was the 25-year-old’s first time taking the Guardians’ celebratory knight’s helmet for a spin.
“That felt good too, man,” Manzardo said. “I figured my time was coming to try that thing on. I’m happy I got the chance.”
Manzardo’s first home run came in the Guardians’ 14th game of the season and his 13th personally. For reference, he hit four homers through as many games last year, when he finished with 27. That trailed only José Ramírez (30) among Cleveland players.
Manzardo had a tough start to the young season. He entered Friday 3-for-35 with zero extra-base hits, four walks and 14 strikeouts, which amounted to a .086/.220/.086 slash line.
Of course, we’re not even halfway through April. Overreacting to any sample right now is foolish. And in Manzardo’s case, the under-the-hood numbers have told a bit of a different story in the early going. Consider some key figures on his start to the season, via MLB.com’s Thomas Harrigan.
• Manzardo had a .086 batting average and an expected batting average of .229. The gap of -.143 was largest among hitters with at least 40 plate appearances.
• Manzardo had a .086 slugging percentage and a .340 expected slugging percentage. The gap of -.254 was the second largest among hitters with at least 40 plate appearances.
• Manzardo had a .172 wOBA and a .314 expected wOBA. The gap of -.142 was second largest among hitters with at least 40 plate appearances.
"His batted balls in play are coming off really hard," hitting coach Grant Fink said. "He's hitting the ball at good angles. He was chasing a little bit earlier, trying to search for hits, and we talked through that a little bit.
"But overall he's just had quality at-bats where he looks like he's under control and in control of things and has put some really good swings on balls."
Manzardo put a good swing on the ball in his matchup with Elder. He got a first-pitch sinker in the fourth inning and hit it 108.4 mph off the bat and well over the right-center-field wall at Truist Park. At 454 feet, he tied Domingo Santana (Aug. 8, 2020) for the 14th-longest home run hit by a Cleveland player in the Statcast era (since 2015).
Manzardo acknowledged that getting that result was reassuring. But he also doesn’t want to just purely lean on his expected numbers. Like any player, he wants to produce.
The differential between Manzardo’s surface and expected numbers point to the quality of contact he has been making, but not always getting rewarded for. Entering Saturday, he ranked in the 90th percentile in average exit velocity (93.1 mph).
One key could be Manzardo hitting the ball in the air more frequently. Entering Saturday, his ground-ball rate was 47.8 percent (up from 30.3 in 2025). His fly-ball rate was 21.7 percent (down from 35.3) and his line-drive rate was 21.7 percent (down from 24.4).
“I'm hitting the pitches I want to hit pretty well,” Manzardo said. “I haven't got results, but when everything's going the way it should, some of these lineouts and hard groundouts, they're just balls that I feel like I should be hitting in the air. I'll get rewarded more by hitting the ball hard in the air. So just trying to keep hitting line drives.”
There’s a long season ahead. Manzardo showed what he’s capable of this past season, and Friday's homer was in line with that.
“You're going to go through ebbs and flows of balls dropping, balls not,” Fink said. “So we just focus on the things that actually matter and are sustainable through the year.
“All our convos with a number of players, but Kyle included, have been, ‘Continue to have good at-bats. Continue to do the things that lead to stickiness over the course of the season and not get too concerned with short-term statistics.’”