CdA native, WSU standout Kyle Manzardo finds resurgence after slow start with Guardians

ARLINGTON, Texas – After a rough beginning to 2026, Kyle Manzardo is coming through in a pinch for the Cleveland Guardians.

Following a 2-for-33 start to the season, the former Lake City High and Washington State standout hit .295 in May and is now batting .235 with seven home runs and 21 RBIs.

During his surge, he has also become one of Major League Baseball’s most reliable pinch hitters. Entering Thursday, he’s had 12 at-bats as a pinch hitter and has two home runs and five RBIs.

“Yeah, it’s something I’ve worked really hard at because when I first came up, that was such a tough at-bat. Yeah (I wasn’t used to it), just trying to own that role,” Manzardo said during an early June road trip to Texas. “When I show up to the yard that day and I’m not in the lineup, just trying to own that – knowing that a spot is probably going to come up where I’m going to be expected to go give the team a quality at-bat.

“So, just not putting too much pressure on myself in those spots and going into those at-bats with a great amount of respect for how tough that is to do. Just being ready to get my pitch.”

Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt applauds Manzardo’s approach at the plate in those situations.

“Pinch-hitting is the hardest thing in the world to do, coming off the bench to face somebody when they’ve been going and you’re not,” Vogt said. “Kyle’s had some huge pinch hits for us the last three years. It’s a mentality. It’s go up and take your at-bat. We don’t expect you to go get a hit when you pinch hit. That’s not the expectation. The expectation is this is a favorable matchup for you, go compete, go take your at-bat. He’s gotten some really good results.”

Manzardo’s resurgence has been aided by his close relationship with hitting coach Grant Fink, the Spokane native now in his second season in the majors. When they’re not talking technique, they’re likely chatting about life back in the Northwest.

“We’ve always had that connection,” Manzardo said. “I’ve been working with Fink for years now, even before I got to the big leagues. We had that relationship when he was a coordinator and then we’ve gotten to know each other really well and become pretty close here in the big leagues the last couple years.”

“We grew up probably 25 minutes from each other,” said Fink, who graduated from Mead in 2009. “I’m much older than him, but we were around some of the same guys that were in between our ages, so (we share) a lot of familiar faces in the baseball world. We’ve had some good conversations about just Pacific Northwest baseball in general.”

One thing they both agree on? Players from the Northwest are built differently.

“Yeah, it’s a resilient group of players that come out of that area because it’s (full of) cold-weather states with tons of rain,” Manzardo said. “You got to want it real bad to spend those winters putting work in however you can.”

Stephen Hunt is a freelance writer based in Frisco, Texas.