Cleveland’s middle infield started the 2025 season as one of the Guardians’ biggest question marks. Weeks later, Travis Bazzana and Brayan Rocchio are giving it shape.
Manager Stephen Vogt said the two have begun to click after the club brought up Bazzana, the former No. 1 overall selection in the 2024 draft. Vogt said Rocchio has been pushing Bazzana in practice, while the two keep talking through different angles and communications as they work together on the right side of the infield.
“Yeah, it’s great,” Vogt said. “You see Rocchio pushing him during practice. You see them talking constantly, working on different angles, different communications.”
That progress matters because Cleveland needed an answer up the middle. Vogt said the Guardians did see some early growing pains on balls up the middle, but that those problems have eased in recent games. He said Bazzana and Rocchio still are not at the point where each can read the other with total instinct, but they are getting closer.
“We saw some kind of growing pains early on balls up the middle, but we really haven’t seen that as of late, and, you know, anytime you have a double play combo, it takes time to get used to each other,” Vogt said. “It takes time to, you don’t have that sixth sense of where the other one is quite yet, but they’re working on that and starting to feel that really well.”
Rocchio’s bat has helped steady the picture, too. His line had climbed to.277/.357/.372 with a.729 OPS, and he had 41 hits, the second most on the team, along with five doubles and three home runs. He was batting in the No. 9 spot and was getting plenty of chances with runners in scoring position, giving Cleveland a lower-order hitter who has been producing while the defense comes together.
The Guardians’ middle infield did not have a clear identity when the season began, and that uncertainty is part of why Bazzana’s arrival drew attention. His adjustment with Rocchio has now become one of the more encouraging developments for a club trying to settle a key spot on the field.
The next test is whether that chemistry keeps holding when the game speeds up. Cleveland no longer looks like it is searching for a double-play pairing from scratch, but the real measure will be whether Bazzana and Rocchio can keep turning a developing partnership into something dependable every night.
