CLEVELAND — After a rough opening to his 2026 season, Guardians starting pitcher Slade Cecconi went back to the lab, and he brought co-scientist and catcher Patrick Bailey with him.
Together, the two might have found the right formula, along with the help of the rest of the Guardians’ pitching staff.
Cecconi was knocked around in his first eight starts of the season to the tune of a 6.15 ERA. But since May 9, when the Guardians acquired Bailey via trade? Cecconi has completely turned it around and posted a 2.55 ERA in nine outings. Over that time period, it’s the third best ERA among American League starting pitchers. Only New York’s Cam Schlittler and Tampa’s Drew Rasmussen have been better.
Of course, it isn’t quite that simple as to why Cecconi has found his groove, but it’s certainly part of the equation. The two have instantly meshed.
“He’s really receptive to having conversations between starts and after outings where we both can get on the same page as to how we want to define my identity as a pitcher,” Cecconi said after a six-inning gem in the Guardians’ win over the Seattle Mariners June 27. “Because that’s something I’m still discovering, if that makes sense.”
Cecconi, Bailey and the Guardians have also been experimenting with his pitch mix, and it’s worked wonders over the last few weeks. He stopped throwing as sweeper and replaced it with a slider (a version of his cutter) while adjusting the pitch shape, and the results followed. After having to rely on his mix of fastballs early in the year, the slider has opened up Cecconi’s entire repertoire.
And with the slider in place and the sweeper discarded, he’s been one of the best starters in the American League over the last six weeks following a disastrous start.
“It’s just the ebbs and flows of the game, man,” Cecconi said. “You try something new. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We gave the sweeper enough time to figure out that it wasn’t the right pitch and moved on. It was process oriented.”
Slade Cecconi stats
Through the end of April and even into May, Cecconi was on his way to pitching himself out of the starting rotation as the Guardians try to keep pace with the surprising Chicago White Sox in the American League Central race. Now, he’s the member of the rotation who the Guardians couldn’t live without as they head into the second half of the season.
“He kept telling us, I’m going to get it. I’m going to get it. I’m going to get it,'” said manager Stephen Vogt. “He was surviving with just the fastball early in the year and now he’s thriving with everything.”
It’s also a testament to Cecconi ignoring the big, ugly ERA staring back at him all around the ballpark as he took the mound. It’s something teams monitor when players start the season on the wrong foot, as with baseball, it can take weeks or months before certain metrics don’t make them wince.
“I mean, look back at April, I had a seven,” Cecconi said, referencing his ERA. “I’ve been chipping away for two months now. So the fact that when that situation came up and those results were showing up, we didn’t panic. … We made the little adjustments. OK, the sweeper’s not performing, we’ll go to something else. … If you look at it as feedback, not emotionally, it’s very easy to make adjustments.”
Cecconi will make his next start July 2 against the White Sox in arguably the biggest game of the season to date for the Guardians. A few months ago, he might have been heading toward Triple-A. But now, with Bailey behind the plate and the slider by his side, there’s nobody Cleveland would rather have to take the mound for that game.
Ryan Lewis covers the Guardians for the Akron Beacon Journal. He can be reached at rlewis1@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: How Patrick Bailey and a new slider turned around Slade Cecconi’s 2026
Reporting by Ryan Lewis, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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By Ryan Lewis, Akron Beacon Journal | USA TODAY Network
