CLEVELAND -- Slade Cecconi entered 2026 looking to build upon the foundation he set in his first season with the Guardians last year. There is plenty of time ahead to realize that goal, but this is not how he or the club drew up his start to his campaign.
“I’ve been getting dragged through it a little bit,” Cecconi said Monday. “But [expletive], that’s baseball.”
Cecconi fell under the weather at the start of the season; he powered through it during his debut on March 29 against the Mariners. He’s taken the mound in frigid temperatures. And, ultimately, he’s had some tough results through his first five starts.
That includes Monday against the Astros. In the Guardians’ 9-2 loss at Progressive Field, Cecconi was charged with seven runs (six earned) on 10 hits, including two home runs, in five innings.
Cecconi allowed 10 hard-hit balls (over 95 mph exit velocity), four of which came in the first inning, when the Astros sent seven hitters to the plate and took an early lead on a Christian Walker two-run homer.
“They got me on a lot of first pitches,” Cecconi said. “That's what I do. I attack the strike zone early. They won in that aspect today.”
Indeed, Houston came out ready to swing. Of the 23 balls in play the Astros had against Cecconi, nine came on the first two pitches of a plate appearance. Six came on the first pitch, including Carlos Correa’s leadoff single and Walker’s homer in the first. Both came against Cecconi’s four-seamer.
“It looked like they were all coming out swinging first-pitch fastball,” manager Stephen Vogt said. “If you're executing, that can help you. But they jumped him pretty good tonight.”
In Houston’s four-run fourth inning, third baseman Isaac Paredes led off with a first-pitch home run, though that came against a Cecconi sweeper. Outfielder Brice Matthews hit an RBI double later in the inning off another four-seamer, which came on the third pitch of his sequence.
Cecconi was stellar over six scoreless innings against the Cubs on April 5. Things have been up and down in his other four outings. Through the small sample, he has a 6.20 ERA and a 1.58 WHIP.
Vogt noted pregame on Monday that Cecconi had gone through four good days of work with the Guardians’ pitching team following his most recent start Wednesday against the Cardinals. In that outing, the right-hander’s four-seam fastball velocity averaged 92.5 mph. It entered Monday averaging 92.8 mph this season. Both are well below his 2025 season average of 94.5 mph.
Cecconi experienced an uptick with his velocity on Monday; his heater averaged 93.2 mph. It was one point of solace he and the club took from an otherwise tough outing.
“I thought that was a positive for him,” Vogt said. “He came out of the chute throwing 95 [mph]. Just not crispy with his other stuff. [He] really battled. They got to him there in the fourth. But we saw a lot of good signs from Slade tonight, some things that were definitely an improvement from the last time out.”
Cecconi also pointed to his need to be more crisp on the mound. He described that as sharpening some of his misses up in the zone. Some pitches are naturally going to miss over the course of an outing, but it’s about making sure they’re still effective offerings, which ultimately can set up others.
“They're firm, they're sharp,” Cecconi said. “They're going to give you a chance to make another pitch off it, rather than the underneath, backed up, slow, hittable misses.”
Cecconi feels he’s close to getting there, and noted he’s confident he will. That mindset is a microcosm of his overall philosophy right now. While things haven’t gone as hoped thus far, he’s confident the tide will turn.
There’s a lot of season ahead to do so.
“It's going to make me better at the end of the day,” Cecconi said of his start to the season. “I'm planning on playing this game for a long time. Experiences like this will make me better, regardless of how I feel right now about it, because obviously the emotions at the moment are a little high.
“I'm not thrilled with how things are going in terms of the results I've been getting, and giving my team a chance to win ball games. But it will make me better, and I will be back to exactly who I was in spring soon.”