CHICAGO -- Guardians first baseman Kyle Manzardo was getting some pregame defensive work in on Saturday morning when he stopped. White Sox right-hander Aaron Civale came across the field to introduce himself to the 24-year-old, and they shared a brief conversation.
Manzardo and Civale will always be intertwined in Cleveland baseball history after they were traded for one another on July 31, 2023. Their paths crossed once more on Sunday afternoon in Chicago. Manzardo hit a three-run homer off Civale in the sixth inning of the Guardians’ 6-5 win over the White Sox in 10 innings at Rate Field.
The Guardians enter the All-Star break 46-49. They have gone 6-1 since their 10-game losing streak.
“It’s a cool moment to get to look back on,” Manzardo said. “I was fortunate that I got my pitch. … He just introduced himself. It was pretty cool, just given the fact that we were traded for each other.”
As the Guardians went through an inconsistent 2023 season, they traded Civale (who had a 2.34 ERA over 13 starts for Cleveland) to Tampa Bay, which was hungry to add pitching. It netted them Manzardo, a key piece of their club in 2025 who was then ranked as the Rays’ No. 4 prospect and No. 73 overall by MLB Pipeline.
As Manzardo made his way down the handshake line after his homer on Sunday, someone shouted “We won the trade!” in his direction, as heard on the team’s TV broadcast.
Sunday marked the first time Manzardo and Civale have faced off, and Civale had the upper hand early. Manzardo flew out to center in his first at-bat and struck out in his second. The Guardians overall had just one hit (a Brayan Rocchio bunt single) in the first five innings.
Manzardo saw three pitches his first time up and six in his second at-bat. With two on and two out in the sixth, Civale threw him a first-pitch cutter, and Manzardo jumped on it and hit it a Statcast-projected 108.9 mph and 418 feet. It was Manzardo’s second-hardest batted ball this season and his second-longest home run.
“That was great,” manager Stephen Vogt said. “Civale was keeping us off balance. We were letting a lot of his cutters go. It’s a good pitch, and that was really the first one that he left flat up over the middle. Manzo was ready to go and didn't miss it.
“That was one of my favorite games of the year, because I thought we played awful the first five innings. I thought our offense was dead. Civale was doing whatever he wanted. For us to explode like that late off of him, that was really fun to see.”
The Guardians’ offense recently has been too. Cleveland entered its road trip riding a 10-game losing streak, during which it scored just 15 runs. The Guardians went 6-1 against the Astros and White Sox this week and crossed the plate 41 times. They have scored four or more runs in a season-high seven straight games.
“It’s awesome. We played great baseball on this trip,” Vogt said. “It was really fun to see our guys turn that stretch around. Obviously, the 10 in a row hurt, but for us to just turn around and keep it rolling the whole time, it was a lot of fun. We had multiple guys come up clutch, come up huge on this road trip. So it was a great trip for our team.”
Sunday, that included Steven Kwan, Cleveland’s left fielder who bounced back from a mistake in the eighth inning. The now-two-time All-Star hit a go-ahead sac fly in the top of the 10th, and he made an impressive sliding catch down the left-field foul line to start the bottom half.
Two innings prior, Kwan misplayed an Edgar Quero fly ball, which got by him after he attempted to make a sliding catch. It led to the White Sox scoring the tying run. Kwan said he thought he had a bead on it.
“I think there was a little bit of an ego in that,” Kwan said, “where I had to make sure I made that catch [in the 10th] because I messed up that one before.”
“That’s what great players do,” Vogt said. “All the great players that I’ve seen, if they do make a mistake, next time they come up or the next time they get an opportunity, they come through.”