Cooper Ingle powers Columbus with first career three-homer game

Cooper Ingle did not just have a big night in Columbus. He put the Guardians on notice. The 24-year-old catcher went 4-for-4 with three home runs and a double in Columbus’s 7-5 win over Scranton/Wilkes-Barre at Huntington Park, a performance that came in front of 10,100 fans and marked the first three-homer game of his professional career.

The eruption fit the shape of his season. Through 47 games, Ingle owns a .304/.436/.590 line with 12 home runs and a 1.026 OPS, and both the power and the patience have been loud enough to turn this from a hot streak into a legitimate call-up clock story. He already had a two-homer game on April 19, but June 18 was the night the ceiling moved again. His 12 homers are already a new career high, topping the 11 he hit in 2024 across Lake County and Akron.

What is left to prove in Triple-A is not the bat. That part has answered every question Cleveland can ask. Ingle, a left-handed hitter and right-handed thrower listed at 5-foot-8 and 190 pounds, has shown that his offensive profile travels: on-base skills, impact contact and enough strength to punish mistakes. MLB.com noted that he led all minor league catchers in wRC+ (160), on-base percentage (.419) and BB/K ratio (1.2) in his first full pro season in 2024, which is why the organization has treated his plate work as more than a one-game spike. The remaining tests are the ones behind the plate, where Cleveland still wants him sharpening the receiving and game-management that come with catching every day.

That is also why the Guardians have started pushing him around the diamond. Cleveland has given Ingle time in left field and the outfield in late May and early June, a clear sign the club is trying to widen the path to a big-league roster that is already crowded behind the plate. Patrick Bailey’s arrival in a May 9 trade forced Bo Naylor to Columbus the same day, and the big-league catching picture also includes Austin Hedges and David Fry. Ingle’s bat is making the conversation unavoidable; the roster move that would make his debut real is a vacancy in that catching mix, because there is no clean opening until Cleveland clears one.

The prospect lists back up the urgency. MLB Pipeline has Ingle at No. 3 in the Guardians system and No. 69 overall, while Baseball America placed him at No. 10 in the organization. Drafted by Cleveland in the fourth round in 2023 out of Clemson, the Asheville, North Carolina, native has turned a modest frame into premium production. The box score in Columbus said it plainly: the next step is no longer about whether Ingle can hit enough. It is about when Cleveland finally makes room for him.