Cooper Ingle makes MLB debut, added to struggling Guardians lineup

CLEVELAND — Guardians prospect Cooper Ingle was relaxing a bit in a hotel room in Omaha, Nebraska, when a knock on the door broke the silence.

What was waiting on the other side was much better than new towels, fresh sheets or a nice slice of New York cheesecake via room service. It was a message he had waited most of his life to hear — and, at first, he unknowingly turned it away.

“We get a knock on the door and we’re like, ‘No room service.’ That’s what we thought originally,” Ingle said before the Guardians played the Mariners on June 26. “We were like, ‘No, we don’t need any towels or anything. We’re good.’ And they kept knocking. We were like, ‘No, we’re good.'”

“It gets to the third or fourth knock and [Triple-A teammate Trenton Denholm] goes and opens the door and [Triple-A manager] Andy Tracy comes in,” Ingle said. “I was like, ‘OK, this is different.'”

Tracy, often a jokester when delivering the big news since becoming the manager of the Columbus Clippers, asked Ingle if he’d be available to pinch hit in the next Triple-A game, before adding, “Well, you don’t have to worry about it — because you’re going to the bigs.”

“It was a pretty cool moment,” Ingle said, smiling.

Ingle is yet another Guardians prospect to receive the call to the major leagues this season, joining a list of players highlighted by former No. 1 overall pick Travis Bazzana.

Ingle destroyed Triple-A pitching this season, hitting .284 with a .416 on-base percentage, a .967 OPS, 12 home runs, nine doubles and 14 RBIs in 51 games. In addition to earning his promotion to the majors with his own play, the recent series of injuries that sidelined Jose Ramirez, Chase DeLauter and Angel Martinez led to an all-hands-on-deck need for as much offensive production as the Guardians can find.

Ingle had been a highly regarded prospect for his hitting, but his 2026 production took the kind of step up to demand action on the team’s part. Perhaps the biggest reason for it all? In the offseason, Ingle dove into a nutritional plan and more work between games to maintain himself physically, resulting in an additional 15 pounds.

“Yeah, I think this year I’m a lot more physical than I was in the past,” Ingle said. “I wouldn’t say I didn’t take care of my body in the past, but I’ve really tried to stay on top of it this year. … So I think I’ve been able to impact the baseball more, and with my given traits as a player, I have good swing decisions and make a lot of contact.”

Ingle came up as a catcher but recently began seeing some work in the outfield, offering some positional flexibility the Guardians often love. They now have four players who can catch — Patrick Bailey, Austin Hedges and David Fry — with both Ingle and Fry as utility players.

“Yeah, we want 10 catchers on the roster,” manager Stephen Vogt, a former catcher himself, joked. “Coop’s going to mostly play left field and DH for us. I think he’s got the ability to go behind the plate. We feel like where the team needs him right now is to do that, play left field and DH.”

Ingle was inserted into the No. 5 spot in his MLB debut — a rare spot in the lineup for any player to occupy on Day 1 — and went 0-for-2 with a walk in the Guardians’ 3-1 loss to the Mariners.

Ingle came up as a catching prospect, but for the time being he’s being asked more to help a depleted Guardians lineup find some extra production.

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: Cooper Ingle makes MLB debut, added to struggling Guardians lineup