Cleveland Guardians Reveal 2026 Opening Day Lineup
The Cleveland Guardians announce what their Opening Day roster against the Seattle Mariners will be.
Video Transcript
Opening day is finally here, and here is the lineup the Cleveland Guardians are gonna be going with for the first game of the regular season against the Seattle Mariners.
Steven Kwan is gonna be playing left field, Chase DeLauter in right field, Jose Ramirez at third base, Kyle Manzardo as the designated hitter, Bo Naylor as the catcher, Rhys Hoskins at first base, Daniel Schneeman in center field, Gabriel Arias at shortstop, and then Brian Rocchio at second base.
Now, there's really not too many takeaways with this group.
I think that it's probably what a lot of people were expecting heading into this series.
Maybe one of the big shockers is that Steven Kwan isn't playing center field to begin the season, and he's back in left field.
But the Guardians clearly wanted to get Daniel Schneeman's bat into the lineup, and it made the most sense for him to start in center and for Kwan to move over back to left.
I don't think this doesn't mean that we will never see Kwan in center field this season.
It just makes the most sense to beat the starter today against Logan Gilbert, which is a theme that Steven Boda talked about all spring and even going back to last season as well.
And it's great to see Rhys Hoskins in there for his first start as a Guardian in the regular season.
He's batting behind Bo Naylor and behind Kyle Manzardo.
And personally, I thought that would be something that would get switched to ha- split up the right-handed and left-handed hitters, but it all is gonna make sense in the end, and especially with having that right-handed, starter on the mound.
I think if once we have a left-handed pitcher for the Guardian-- or ag- for the Guardians to face, we'll see Hoskins move right up.
We'll have to see whether or not this lineup is good enough for the Guardian to start one and O on the season and beat the Seattle Mariners to open up the 2026 season.
