'Nothing Suspicious': Naylor Backs Clase as Pitch-Rigging Trial Hears Its First Testimony

The most important witness in baseball's biggest trial in years took the stand on Thursday, looked back at the pitches he caught, and told the jury he saw nothing wrong with them. Bo Naylor, the former Cleveland Guardians catcher, testified in federal court in Brooklyn that the throws at the heart of the Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz pitch-rigging case were, to his eye, perfectly ordinary. "Nothing suspicious," was how he put it — and for the defence, it was exactly the sentence they wanted the jury to hear.

Naylor was not supposed to testify this early. He was called out of order, ahead of the prosecution's remaining witnesses, so that he could fly to Italy to get married this weekend. But his evidence went straight to the centre of the case. He caught seven of the 18 pitches prosecutors say Clase rigged between May 2023 and May 2025, and he told the court the scouting report on those pitches was exactly what a catcher would expect: sliders, low and outside. Nothing about them struck him as strange at the time, and nothing does now.

The trial, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York before Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto, opened on Monday with jury selection and opening statements, and it is expected to run until at least December 3. Clase, 28, a three-time All-Star and two-time American League Reliever of the Year, and Ortiz, 27, have pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery, wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. If convicted on every count, they could face up to 65 years in prison. Both have been on non-disciplinary leave without pay since July 2025, and both are out on bail. They are presumed innocent.

The prosecution's case, laid out in opening statements by Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Urquiola, is that the two pitchers took payoffs to alter individual pitches — their speed and location — so that gamblers betting on those micro-outcomes could cash in. Prosecutors say bettors tied to the scheme won at least $450,000, and that Clase used coded language to disguise the nature of the pitches. The government has already called Major League Baseball senior vice president Paul Mifsud and DraftKings investigations director Joel Trella, and a bettor named Edward Canario testified that a co-defendant, Luis Arismendy Paca Méndez, told him to place specific bets on Clase's pitches in May and June 2023. Canario said he placed some 600 bets on pitches and handed half his profits to the insider.

Against that, the defence has a simple argument: the pitches were just pitches. Naylor, who caught alleged fixed throws from both men between 2023 and 2025, gave them their first witness to say so under oath. Two more catchers, Austin Hedges and Mike Zunino, are on the witness list and may follow. The trial is only in its first week, and the prosecution still has its case to build. But Naylor's testimony is a reminder of how hard this case will be to prove — because the difference between a fixed pitch and a bad one, in the end, may come down to what the man behind the plate saw, and what he is willing to say he did not.