Gavin Williams' perfect game bid ends in a rain-soaked brawl

Gavin Williams came into his start against Arizona already the guy Rob Friedman was hyping on FanDuel, a 7-strikeout prop that looked laughably conservative within a few innings. By the time he'd fanned the side in the 2nd, it was clear this wasn't a normal Sunday for the Guardians righty.

Rob Friedman

@PitchingNinja

Gavin Williams, K'ing the Side in the 2nd

The strikeouts kept piling up in bunches. 6 through 3, 8 through 4, 9 through 5 — and somewhere in there, the box score revealed the other number that mattered: zero hits, zero walks, zero baserunners. Williams wasn't just having a career day. He was working on a perfect game.

Rob Friedman

@PitchingNinja

Gavin Williams 💯 10th K

That's when the Diamondbacks tried to bunt their way on. Attempting to lay one down purely to snap a no-hit bid is one of baseball's oldest unwritten-rule violations, and the Guardians treated it like exactly that. According to Jomboy Media, Cleveland was furious at Arizona for the attempt, and the tension didn't cool off — it boiled over during a rain delay, with both benches clearing as the grounds crew tried to get the tarp down.

Jomboy Media

@JomboyMedia

Guardians were pissed at the Dbacks after they tried to bunt and end Gavin Williams' perfect game The benches ended up clearing in the pouring rain as the grounds crew tried to get the tarp on the field

The perfect game didn't survive the chaos, but the strikeout binge did. Codify Baseball's numbers put the outing in absurd company: Williams became just the 2nd pitcher since 2021 to string together 5 straight starts with 10-plus strikeouts, joining Shohei Ohtani as the only names to do it in that span. Nobody managed it in 2023, 2024 or 2025 — Williams just did it in the middle of a bench-clearing rainstorm.

It's the latest data point in what's been a genuine breakout year in Cleveland. Williams battled injuries and control issues in his first few seasons before turning a corner in 2025, and he's carried that leap into 2026 with a strikeout rate that's now leading the American League and a walk total that's cratered compared to his early career. Friedman's tally after the fact says it all: 55 strikeouts against just 3 walks over his last 5 starts, the kind of ratio that gets a guy into Cy Young conversations rather than just win totals.

The Diamondbacks will get the benefit of the doubt on the baseball logic — no-hitters aren't sacred to opposing dugouts, and plenty of teams have bunted to break one up without drama. But doing it in the 6th inning of a perfect game, then getting shown up on the very next pitch, was always going to get chippy. Williams walked away from the afternoon with his strikeout streak intact and a new reputation as the guy nobody wants to face right now.