The Indians got one more early season monkey off their back, by winning
their first home series of the season. They took game one in walk off
fashion as Asdrubal Cabrera played hero with a walk-off single late
Friday night. Then game two the Tribe was shutdown by Dan Haren, and
while the Indians pitching was good all series, Haren was just a bit
better. Then came game 3, where Derek Lowe is proving to be one of our
aces, his start with some bullpen help shutout the Angels, and the Tribe
won 4-0 with the help of 3 runs off of Angels errors.
HITTING:
The Angels sent Jared Weaver, Dan Haren, and Ervin Santana to the mound
over the weekend, so I give the hitters a free pass as those guys are
pretty good. After this series you will see that the Indians no longer
have a .300 hitter, but the usual suspects(Pronk and Santana) are still
getting on-base over .400. Grimmace managed to raise his average .011
points with his 2 hits this series, and is now smashing the ball at
.149, but still 0-infinity with RISP. However, you don't have to hit to
contribute, and Grimmace is still making great plays on defense, and
saving a lot of runs. He turned a couple double plays by making line
drive grabs with runners on, and with a guy like Lowe on the mound who
induced 12 groundouts, sometimes a gold glove defensive ability is just
as valuable as a hitter.
Hot Hitters:
Michael Brantley, Asdrubal Cabrera, PRONK, and Kipnis.
Coooooooold Hitters:
Grimmace, Duncan, and Mannahan.
Again, most of these guys aren't scorching it, and the cold hitters get
a free pass as most of the team still drew a lot of walks in the series.
In fact the Indians lead MLB by 12 walks to the next closest team, and
we have played the fewest games of any MLB team this season. I didn't
expect many runs this series, and unfortunately I expect the cold
hitting to continue as our next opponent is the White Sox who always
give our hitters and pitchers a lot of fits. Good news is, Mr. Choo
will be returning to the lineup on Tuesday, and that should help things
a lot.
Pitching:
Money in the bank. Nobody pitched bad, all the starters pitched about
as well as they could. Masterson, Gomez, and Lowe all deserved wins,
and were extremely accurate for the most part, but when matched up
against pitchers just as good, sometimes you don't get the W. I thought
Masterson out pitched Weaver, who was forced to pitch a lot with the
Indians drawing walks, and fouling off a lot of his pitches, but he got
the outs he needed to so he lasted long enough to prevent Masterson from
a W. Gomez was going up against Haren and we lost the game 2-1. That's
solid performances by all pitchers, bullpen included.
Hot Pitchers: Lowe, Jeanmar Gomez, Chris Perez, and Vinnie Pestano.
Nobody is cold, some are just average pitchers which looks worse when
the entire team is on fire around them.
What impressed me about the Angels? Torii Hunter still has it. Dude
was ripping the ball, playing great defense(until he had the error that
cost the Angels 2 runs on Sunday). However, even with his error, they
didn't score, so they would have lost anyways. Hunter was an Indian
killer while in Minnesota, they didn't re-sign him, and he has quietly
put up good years while in LA, and although he is in RF, it's not
because he dropped off significantly on defense, they just have Bourjus
and Trout who are pretty good at defense too. He jacked two HRs in the
series when nobody else could get the ball out of the park.
The other player to look out for is Mark Trumbo. He plays every
position and hits over .330 with power. He was a young touted prospect,
and he appears to have no problems hitting big league pitching. The
Angels are struggling right now, but with young guys like him, Morales,
and Trout now playing every day, they're not going far from contender
status anytime soon.
Tribe is in 1st place as we close the month of April. 11-9 isn't the
greatest record, but it is the best in the Central, so I will take it.
Way to go Tribe.
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 3 1 2 0 1 1 15 .250 .321 .355
J Kipnis 2B 4 0 1 0 0 1 14 .256 .330 .436
A Cabrera SS 4 0 0 0 0 1 14 .286 .348 .460
T Hafner DH 4 0 1 0 0 0 12 .295 .450 .459
J Donald PR-DH 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 .206 .216 .206
C Santana C 4 1 3 0 0 0 15 .262 .417 .446
J Hannahan 3B 2 0 0 0 1 0 17 .290 .375 .403
S Duncan LF 3 0 0 1 0 0 8 .230 .355 .344
C Kotchman 1B 4 0 1 0 0 0 20 .149 .240 .254
A Cunningham RF 3 1 1 0 0 0 9 .243 .300 .297
Totals 31 4 9 1 2 3 124
BATTING
2B: C Santana (3, E Santana)
RBI: S Duncan (8)
S: J Hannahan
SF: S Duncan
GIDP: A Cabrera
Indians RISP: 0-8 (S Duncan 0-1, A Cabrera 0-3, T Hafner 0-2, J Kipnis
0-2)
Team LOB: 7
FIELDING
E: C Santana (1, throw)
DP: 1 (C Kotchman).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
D Lowe
(W, 4-1) 7.2 3 0 0 2 1 0 107-62 2.27
V Pestano
(H, 5) 0.1 0 0 0 1 1 0 10-6 2.79
C Perez 1.0 0 0 0 0 2 0 15-12 4.00
Totals 9.0 3 0 0 3 4 0 132-80
PITCHING
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: D Lowe 12/27; V Pestano 1/2; C Perez
2/3
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: D Lowe
19-6-14-23; V Pestano 3-2-1-0; C Perez 2-3-6-1
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: D Lowe 14-7; V Pestano 0-0; C Perez 0-1
Game Scores: D Lowe 72
Monday, April 30, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
KC Breaks losing streak :(
Well it had to happen eventually. The Royals had lost 12 straight
games, and were hitting the ball hard, but in all the wrong places.
Well they found a solution against the Indians last night. If you hit
the ball hard in the field of play, and it always gets web gemmed for an
out, or hit right at a fielder, how do you win? Just hit the ball out
of the ballpark. The Indians were drummed for 4 HRs, and the offense
couldn't get the free passes last night, and thus lead to a loss in Game
2 of this series against the Royals. After the first KC series my
analysis of their team is that they are REALLY good, and will be for
sometime once they put it all together. I said Billy Butler was one of
the best hitters in the AL that goes unnoticed, well the Indians noticed
him as he clubbed 2 HRs last night. Alex Gordon hit the biggest one
which was a 3-run HR off of Jairo Ascensio in the 9th. It was big
because we were only down 4-2 at the time, and then when we had to bat
in the bottom of the 9th down 6 runs you could tell the energy was just
deflated from the hitters.
The offense struggled against Luke Hochevar which may seem shocking
considering we got 8 runs off of him in our first meeting. However, he
was no-hitting us thru the first 4 innings of that start too, so the
fact that he pitched very well tonight should not be surprising. He is
a former #1 pick for a reason, and the Indians put some really good
at-bats against him, just not back-to-back. I actually felt bad for
Hochevar who almost got hit by comebackers twice, and he did leave the
game earlier in the year on a comebacker from the Indians in KC. Shin
Soo Choo missed the game with a hamstring injury, and that moved
everyone up in the lineup, and then Aaron Cunningham got the start in RF
and hit 9th. Hafner had the best at-bats all night as he hit the ball
solid, drew deep counts, got an RBI, and he had the comebackers that
either ricocheted off the mound right to a defender, or hit off Hochevar
and deflected to the wrong place.
Grimmace is now on an 0-22 streak. He did get hit by a pitch, but that
didn't seem to turn things around for him. Cleveland must have the
largest infield in the majors, because he can't seem to hit it beyond
there when we are home.
The pitching actually wasn't as bad as an 8-2 score would lead you to
believe. They gave up the long ball, but other than that, the Royals
really didn't put a lot of pressure on the Indians, and they were done
in by some unfortunate breaks. Most notably in the 4th inning when a
ball got thru both Cabrera and Kipnis who were on the same side of the
infield during a shift. They both stopped thinking the other had it,
that extended the inning, and lead to 2 more KC runs off of Ubaldo
Jimenez. Jimenez showed both the good and the bad all in the same game.
Some innings he mowed down hitters, and even had some low pitch count
innings, and others he was 'effectively wild' until they caught him for
a HR. Same story with a different start for him, he has to get
consistent somehow, and since he wasn't locating his fastball he needs
to have a secondary pitch that he can throw at anytime for strikes, and
right now he doesn't, although he will throw all pitches equally in any
count. Something was wrong with Rafael Perez as he couldn't crack 90mph
on the radar gun. I hope he isn't hurt, because he is really good, but
like I mentioned yesterday the bullpen is very deep.
After the game, in reference about the Kipnis-Cabrera confusion letting
a grounder get thru, according to ESPN.com Indians manager Manny Acta
said "It probably looked like Jason was closer to the ball, but that's
not what we preach around here. What we preach around here is you
collide going after a ball. You don't look at each other. We have ice.
We have a training staff. You don't look at each other and let a ball
drop. Unfortunately, that cost us." I now am fully knowledgeable about
why we always seem to have a long list of guys on the D.L during the
season.
Quick Hits -
- It's getting really bad to watch Grimmace hit.
- Matt LaPorta was their minor leaguer of the day, which isn't good for
the first bullet of this quick hits.
- I like the stuff of Jairo Ascencio, but he does get hit a lot. Maybe
he needs to work on hiding the ball a bit on his delivery, but he has
good velocity, good movement, and good control. Not sure why he gets
hit.
- Grady Sizemore will be hitting off a tee this weekend. Manny Acta is
probably thrilled, since Sizemore is all about colliding into things.
- Johnny Damon is on track for a possible mid-May debut.
- Still no word on how long Choo is out, but they are listing him as
day-to-day.
Tribe play at Noon today as old reliable Josh Tomlin will face the
speedy Luis Mendoza.
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 4 1 1 0 0 1 20 .200 .273 .300
A Cabrera SS 3 0 1 0 1 0 22 .304 .373 .522
C Santana C 3 0 1 0 1 0 13 .250 .412 .462
T Hafner DH 4 0 1 1 0 0 12 .327 .484 .531
S Duncan LF 4 0 0 0 0 3 16 .250 .393 .396
J Hannahan 3B 4 0 0 0 0 2 18 .333 .421 .479
J Kipnis 2B 3 1 0 0 1 1 12 .226 .310 .452
C Kotchman 1B 3 0 0 0 0 1 15 .140 .234 .263
A Cunningham RF 3 0 1 1 0 0 5 .217 .308 .261
Totals 31 2 5 2 3 8 133
BATTING
2B: T Hafner (4, L Hochevar)
RBI: T Hafner (9), A Cunningham (1)
Indians RISP: 1-7 (M Brantley 0-1, A Cunningham 1-1, S Duncan 0-2, A
Cabrera 0-1, T Hafner 0-2)
Team LOB: 6
BASERUNNING
SB: M Brantley (2, 3rd base off L Hochevar/H Quintero)
FIELDING
DP: 2 (M Brantley-J Hannahan-J Kipnis, A Cabrera-J Kipnis-C Kotchman).
Outfield Assist: M Brantley (M Moustakas at 2nd base).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
U Jimenez
(L, 2-1) 6.0 6 4 4 3 2 2 113-64 4.50
D Wheeler 1.0 1 0 0 0 0 0 13-9 4.50
R Perez 1.0 0 0 0 2 0 0 16-4 3.52
J Asencio 1.0 4 4 4 0 0 2 26-17 7.15
Totals 9.0 11 8 8 5 2 4 168-94
PITCHING
WP: U Jimenez
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: U Jimenez 17/26; D Wheeler 2/4; R
Perez 0/4; J Asencio 3/7
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: U Jimenez
21-5-19-19; D Wheeler 3-1-1-4; R Perez 0-1-1-2; J Asencio 2-4-4-7
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: U Jimenez 5-10; D Wheeler 1-2; R Perez 2-1; J
Asencio 2-1
Game Scores: U Jimenez 43
games, and were hitting the ball hard, but in all the wrong places.
Well they found a solution against the Indians last night. If you hit
the ball hard in the field of play, and it always gets web gemmed for an
out, or hit right at a fielder, how do you win? Just hit the ball out
of the ballpark. The Indians were drummed for 4 HRs, and the offense
couldn't get the free passes last night, and thus lead to a loss in Game
2 of this series against the Royals. After the first KC series my
analysis of their team is that they are REALLY good, and will be for
sometime once they put it all together. I said Billy Butler was one of
the best hitters in the AL that goes unnoticed, well the Indians noticed
him as he clubbed 2 HRs last night. Alex Gordon hit the biggest one
which was a 3-run HR off of Jairo Ascensio in the 9th. It was big
because we were only down 4-2 at the time, and then when we had to bat
in the bottom of the 9th down 6 runs you could tell the energy was just
deflated from the hitters.
The offense struggled against Luke Hochevar which may seem shocking
considering we got 8 runs off of him in our first meeting. However, he
was no-hitting us thru the first 4 innings of that start too, so the
fact that he pitched very well tonight should not be surprising. He is
a former #1 pick for a reason, and the Indians put some really good
at-bats against him, just not back-to-back. I actually felt bad for
Hochevar who almost got hit by comebackers twice, and he did leave the
game earlier in the year on a comebacker from the Indians in KC. Shin
Soo Choo missed the game with a hamstring injury, and that moved
everyone up in the lineup, and then Aaron Cunningham got the start in RF
and hit 9th. Hafner had the best at-bats all night as he hit the ball
solid, drew deep counts, got an RBI, and he had the comebackers that
either ricocheted off the mound right to a defender, or hit off Hochevar
and deflected to the wrong place.
Grimmace is now on an 0-22 streak. He did get hit by a pitch, but that
didn't seem to turn things around for him. Cleveland must have the
largest infield in the majors, because he can't seem to hit it beyond
there when we are home.
The pitching actually wasn't as bad as an 8-2 score would lead you to
believe. They gave up the long ball, but other than that, the Royals
really didn't put a lot of pressure on the Indians, and they were done
in by some unfortunate breaks. Most notably in the 4th inning when a
ball got thru both Cabrera and Kipnis who were on the same side of the
infield during a shift. They both stopped thinking the other had it,
that extended the inning, and lead to 2 more KC runs off of Ubaldo
Jimenez. Jimenez showed both the good and the bad all in the same game.
Some innings he mowed down hitters, and even had some low pitch count
innings, and others he was 'effectively wild' until they caught him for
a HR. Same story with a different start for him, he has to get
consistent somehow, and since he wasn't locating his fastball he needs
to have a secondary pitch that he can throw at anytime for strikes, and
right now he doesn't, although he will throw all pitches equally in any
count. Something was wrong with Rafael Perez as he couldn't crack 90mph
on the radar gun. I hope he isn't hurt, because he is really good, but
like I mentioned yesterday the bullpen is very deep.
After the game, in reference about the Kipnis-Cabrera confusion letting
a grounder get thru, according to ESPN.com Indians manager Manny Acta
said "It probably looked like Jason was closer to the ball, but that's
not what we preach around here. What we preach around here is you
collide going after a ball. You don't look at each other. We have ice.
We have a training staff. You don't look at each other and let a ball
drop. Unfortunately, that cost us." I now am fully knowledgeable about
why we always seem to have a long list of guys on the D.L during the
season.
Quick Hits -
- It's getting really bad to watch Grimmace hit.
- Matt LaPorta was their minor leaguer of the day, which isn't good for
the first bullet of this quick hits.
- I like the stuff of Jairo Ascencio, but he does get hit a lot. Maybe
he needs to work on hiding the ball a bit on his delivery, but he has
good velocity, good movement, and good control. Not sure why he gets
hit.
- Grady Sizemore will be hitting off a tee this weekend. Manny Acta is
probably thrilled, since Sizemore is all about colliding into things.
- Johnny Damon is on track for a possible mid-May debut.
- Still no word on how long Choo is out, but they are listing him as
day-to-day.
Tribe play at Noon today as old reliable Josh Tomlin will face the
speedy Luis Mendoza.
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 4 1 1 0 0 1 20 .200 .273 .300
A Cabrera SS 3 0 1 0 1 0 22 .304 .373 .522
C Santana C 3 0 1 0 1 0 13 .250 .412 .462
T Hafner DH 4 0 1 1 0 0 12 .327 .484 .531
S Duncan LF 4 0 0 0 0 3 16 .250 .393 .396
J Hannahan 3B 4 0 0 0 0 2 18 .333 .421 .479
J Kipnis 2B 3 1 0 0 1 1 12 .226 .310 .452
C Kotchman 1B 3 0 0 0 0 1 15 .140 .234 .263
A Cunningham RF 3 0 1 1 0 0 5 .217 .308 .261
Totals 31 2 5 2 3 8 133
BATTING
2B: T Hafner (4, L Hochevar)
RBI: T Hafner (9), A Cunningham (1)
Indians RISP: 1-7 (M Brantley 0-1, A Cunningham 1-1, S Duncan 0-2, A
Cabrera 0-1, T Hafner 0-2)
Team LOB: 6
BASERUNNING
SB: M Brantley (2, 3rd base off L Hochevar/H Quintero)
FIELDING
DP: 2 (M Brantley-J Hannahan-J Kipnis, A Cabrera-J Kipnis-C Kotchman).
Outfield Assist: M Brantley (M Moustakas at 2nd base).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
U Jimenez
(L, 2-1) 6.0 6 4 4 3 2 2 113-64 4.50
D Wheeler 1.0 1 0 0 0 0 0 13-9 4.50
R Perez 1.0 0 0 0 2 0 0 16-4 3.52
J Asencio 1.0 4 4 4 0 0 2 26-17 7.15
Totals 9.0 11 8 8 5 2 4 168-94
PITCHING
WP: U Jimenez
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: U Jimenez 17/26; D Wheeler 2/4; R
Perez 0/4; J Asencio 3/7
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: U Jimenez
21-5-19-19; D Wheeler 3-1-1-4; R Perez 0-1-1-2; J Asencio 2-4-4-7
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: U Jimenez 5-10; D Wheeler 1-2; R Perez 2-1; J
Asencio 2-1
Game Scores: U Jimenez 43
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
KC Loses a Bakers Dozen
The Tribe entered it's second homestand of the season with redemption on
its mind. They need this homestand to be the opposite of the first, and
they started off well in recording a 4-3 win over the Kansas City
Royals, extending the Royals losing streak to 12 games. The game
mirrored that of the season opener with the Tribe up early, and then
clinging to the lead late. The difference this time was a good
defensive plays by Manahan and Grimmace which preserved the win, and
then didn't allow Perez to blow a save like he did in the opener.
Hitting looked a little different this game as the Indians gave Michael
Brantley the day off, and Asdrubal Cabrera made his return from the
bereavement list. Overall the usual suspects delivered, Manahan got
RBIs, we drove 9 walks, A-Cab got two hits, and Santana/Duncan each got
an RBI. Grimmace still can't hit with runners in scoring position, and
now is 0-19 in his last 19 At-bats. The Indians overall did a good job
making Sanchez pitch to them, as he couldn't throw a strike unless it
was a change-up. There were a few times last night with runners on that
the Indians tried to get aggressive at the plate, but that led to easy
outs, and with a guy as wild as Sanchez, you need to let him come to
you. Opponents are really fearing Pronk right now, and maybe it's
because it's a contract year, but he is the key to our lineup right now.
Santana is getting great pitches, and Duncan is coming up with a man on
almost everytime. A-Cab is locked in, even after 6 games off, he went
2-4 at the plate.
An intriguing scenario happened last night too. Jason Kipnis looked
pretty good in the lead-off spot. I still like Brantley leading off,
but this team has 3 potential lead-off guys when Sizemore returns, and
while depth is a good thing, where do you put the other two guys?
Because I would not move A-Cab, Choo, Santana, or Pronk right now.
Derek Lowe has been our best starter all season. He gives up some hits,
the Royals got a lot of cheap hits with swinging bunts, but then he just
goes back to the sinker and gets easy groundouts and double plays.
Grimmace and Manahan are key players when there is a Lowe start, because
the infield will stay active and both of those guys have gold glove
ability on the corners. Can't remember how many fly outs there were,
but not many. He is now 3-1 on the year with a 3.00ERA. Sipp had 0
problems and just smoked his 3 batters. Pestano and Perez had some
issues, but the bullpen has allowed 4 runs in its last 22.1 innings
pitched. That's ridiculous good. Some would even argue that the
Indians should have sent Wheeler down to the minors instead of Hagadone
too. We need the right-handed option, but Hagadone sitting in Columbus
just shows you how deep this pen could reach if injuries start to occur.
Overall a win is a win and I like winning the first game of a series.
With Tomlin and Jimenez getting the starts the rest of this series we
should be able to win one of those two. Never underestimate the value
of winning divisional games, even if it's one of the bottom teams.
- Manahan will not allow Chisenhall to be called up.
- I don't want to say Grimmace can't hit any worse, but he is pretty
close to Adam Dunn of last year, but with less strikeouts. I posted
about this yesterday, if the Tribe continue to win despite Grimmace,
then he will stay in the lineup and hopefully breakout of his slump.
However if we start to lose, look for Duncan to move to first and Damon
to play OF.
GO TRIBE!
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
J Kipnis 2B 3 1 1 0 1 1 20 .237 .313 .475
A Cabrera SS 4 1 2 0 1 0 21 .302 .362 .535
S Choo RF 3 0 0 0 1 2 18 .237 .375 .322
a-J Donald PH-LF 1 0 0 0 0 1 3 .206 .216 .206
C Santana C 3 1 1 1 1 0 36 .245 .406 .469
T Hafner DH 3 1 0 0 2 0 19 .333 .500 .533
S Duncan LF 3 0 1 1 0 2 18 .273 .421 .432
M Brantley CF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .196 .274 .304
J Hannahan 3B 3 0 2 2 1 0 17 .364 .453 .523
C Kotchman 1B 3 0 0 0 1 1 22 .148 .233 .278
A Cunningham CF-LF-RF 3 0 1 0 1 0 17 .200 .304 .250
Totals 29 4 8 4 9 7 191
a-struck out swinging for S Choo in the 8th
BATTING
2B: A Cabrera (4, J Sanchez); J Hannahan (4, J Sanchez)
RBI: C Santana (10), S Duncan (7), J Hannahan 2 (13)
SF: C Santana, S Duncan
2-out RBI: J Hannahan 2
GIDP: A Cabrera
Indians RISP: 2-12 (C Santana 0-2, S Choo 0-1, J Donald 0-1, J Hannahan
1-2, S Duncan 0-1, A Cabrera 1-2, T Hafner 0-1, J Kipnis 0-1, C Kotchman
0-1)
Team LOB: 13
BASERUNNING
SB: J Kipnis (3, 2nd base off T Collins/H Quintero)
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
D Lowe
(W, 3-1) 6.0 8 1 1 1 5 0 96-59 3.00
T Sipp
(H, 5) 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 14-9 9.53
V Pestano
(H, 4) 1.0 2 1 1 1 1 0 30-18 3.12
C Perez
(S, 7) 1.0 2 1 1 0 0 0 15-12 4.50
Totals 9.0 12 3 3 2 7 0 155-98
PITCHING
WP: D Lowe
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: D Lowe 10/27; T Sipp 1/3; V Pestano
3/6; C Perez 3/5
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: D Lowe
20-9-9-21; T Sipp 4-1-2-2; V Pestano 7-2-5-4; C Perez 4-1-2-5
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: D Lowe 10-3; T Sipp 0-2; V Pestano 2-0; C Perez
3-0
Game Scores: D Lowe 56
its mind. They need this homestand to be the opposite of the first, and
they started off well in recording a 4-3 win over the Kansas City
Royals, extending the Royals losing streak to 12 games. The game
mirrored that of the season opener with the Tribe up early, and then
clinging to the lead late. The difference this time was a good
defensive plays by Manahan and Grimmace which preserved the win, and
then didn't allow Perez to blow a save like he did in the opener.
Hitting looked a little different this game as the Indians gave Michael
Brantley the day off, and Asdrubal Cabrera made his return from the
bereavement list. Overall the usual suspects delivered, Manahan got
RBIs, we drove 9 walks, A-Cab got two hits, and Santana/Duncan each got
an RBI. Grimmace still can't hit with runners in scoring position, and
now is 0-19 in his last 19 At-bats. The Indians overall did a good job
making Sanchez pitch to them, as he couldn't throw a strike unless it
was a change-up. There were a few times last night with runners on that
the Indians tried to get aggressive at the plate, but that led to easy
outs, and with a guy as wild as Sanchez, you need to let him come to
you. Opponents are really fearing Pronk right now, and maybe it's
because it's a contract year, but he is the key to our lineup right now.
Santana is getting great pitches, and Duncan is coming up with a man on
almost everytime. A-Cab is locked in, even after 6 games off, he went
2-4 at the plate.
An intriguing scenario happened last night too. Jason Kipnis looked
pretty good in the lead-off spot. I still like Brantley leading off,
but this team has 3 potential lead-off guys when Sizemore returns, and
while depth is a good thing, where do you put the other two guys?
Because I would not move A-Cab, Choo, Santana, or Pronk right now.
Derek Lowe has been our best starter all season. He gives up some hits,
the Royals got a lot of cheap hits with swinging bunts, but then he just
goes back to the sinker and gets easy groundouts and double plays.
Grimmace and Manahan are key players when there is a Lowe start, because
the infield will stay active and both of those guys have gold glove
ability on the corners. Can't remember how many fly outs there were,
but not many. He is now 3-1 on the year with a 3.00ERA. Sipp had 0
problems and just smoked his 3 batters. Pestano and Perez had some
issues, but the bullpen has allowed 4 runs in its last 22.1 innings
pitched. That's ridiculous good. Some would even argue that the
Indians should have sent Wheeler down to the minors instead of Hagadone
too. We need the right-handed option, but Hagadone sitting in Columbus
just shows you how deep this pen could reach if injuries start to occur.
Overall a win is a win and I like winning the first game of a series.
With Tomlin and Jimenez getting the starts the rest of this series we
should be able to win one of those two. Never underestimate the value
of winning divisional games, even if it's one of the bottom teams.
- Manahan will not allow Chisenhall to be called up.
- I don't want to say Grimmace can't hit any worse, but he is pretty
close to Adam Dunn of last year, but with less strikeouts. I posted
about this yesterday, if the Tribe continue to win despite Grimmace,
then he will stay in the lineup and hopefully breakout of his slump.
However if we start to lose, look for Duncan to move to first and Damon
to play OF.
GO TRIBE!
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
J Kipnis 2B 3 1 1 0 1 1 20 .237 .313 .475
A Cabrera SS 4 1 2 0 1 0 21 .302 .362 .535
S Choo RF 3 0 0 0 1 2 18 .237 .375 .322
a-J Donald PH-LF 1 0 0 0 0 1 3 .206 .216 .206
C Santana C 3 1 1 1 1 0 36 .245 .406 .469
T Hafner DH 3 1 0 0 2 0 19 .333 .500 .533
S Duncan LF 3 0 1 1 0 2 18 .273 .421 .432
M Brantley CF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .196 .274 .304
J Hannahan 3B 3 0 2 2 1 0 17 .364 .453 .523
C Kotchman 1B 3 0 0 0 1 1 22 .148 .233 .278
A Cunningham CF-LF-RF 3 0 1 0 1 0 17 .200 .304 .250
Totals 29 4 8 4 9 7 191
a-struck out swinging for S Choo in the 8th
BATTING
2B: A Cabrera (4, J Sanchez); J Hannahan (4, J Sanchez)
RBI: C Santana (10), S Duncan (7), J Hannahan 2 (13)
SF: C Santana, S Duncan
2-out RBI: J Hannahan 2
GIDP: A Cabrera
Indians RISP: 2-12 (C Santana 0-2, S Choo 0-1, J Donald 0-1, J Hannahan
1-2, S Duncan 0-1, A Cabrera 1-2, T Hafner 0-1, J Kipnis 0-1, C Kotchman
0-1)
Team LOB: 13
BASERUNNING
SB: J Kipnis (3, 2nd base off T Collins/H Quintero)
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
D Lowe
(W, 3-1) 6.0 8 1 1 1 5 0 96-59 3.00
T Sipp
(H, 5) 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 14-9 9.53
V Pestano
(H, 4) 1.0 2 1 1 1 1 0 30-18 3.12
C Perez
(S, 7) 1.0 2 1 1 0 0 0 15-12 4.50
Totals 9.0 12 3 3 2 7 0 155-98
PITCHING
WP: D Lowe
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: D Lowe 10/27; T Sipp 1/3; V Pestano
3/6; C Perez 3/5
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: D Lowe
20-9-9-21; T Sipp 4-1-2-2; V Pestano 7-2-5-4; C Perez 4-1-2-5
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: D Lowe 10-3; T Sipp 0-2; V Pestano 2-0; C Perez
3-0
Game Scores: D Lowe 56
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Damon is Coming. What do you do?
I know I have alluded to what we should do when Johnny Damon and his left handed bat arrive in the lineup here and there. However I thought now would be a great time to really analyze the best options. There are two main factors as to how he will be used.
1) Are the Indians winning?
2) How are the performances of Shelley Duncan and Grimmace?
To answer the first, if the Indians are winning there will be very little desire to rock the boat and to make a move, just for the sake of making a move. Manny Acta doesn't manage like that, he stays the course as long as that course is equating to wins. If the Indians are winning in-spite of a struggling player or offense, that is completely different. However, as long as the team is winning, you got to think the chemistry and law of averages will work out for the struggling players. If the Indians are winning, then Damon will be used as a priority pinch hitter, and will spell Duncan, Choo, and Brantley(if he can convince the coaches he can play CF).
For the second things get more intriguing. If Shelley Duncan is struggling for a few weeks prior to Damon arriving, then you could see a platoon out in LF. This works great when you factor in how good Shelley Duncan is at pinch hitting. I am sure he doesn't like that label, but until he can establish himself as an everyday player, then teams will find the most value in him with that role. However, if Shelley Duncan is hitting great, and Grimmace doesn't turn things around, that's where things are interesting. How bad is the offense? If the offense is still putting up huge numbers as they did on this past road trip, do you sacrifice the defense to put Damon in the lineup? It's a lefty-lefty swap, because Shelley Duncan can play first base if you want to bench Grimmace. Now Duncan is a huge step down in defensive ability at 1st from Grimmace, but he isn't the biggest liability in the world either, so do you sacrifice defense in hope for more runs? This scenario in my opinion is the best scenario for the use of Damon, and then you gave Grimmace as a defensive specialist or trade bait. Problem for this theory to come true? The Indians will have to be losing AND the offense will need to be struggling. I don't want that to be the case just to see Damon and Duncan both play everyday. I will stick with Grimmace and his solid defense to keep the pitchers moving thru innings, and to keep getting wins any day over a few more hits.
Thoughts?
1) Are the Indians winning?
2) How are the performances of Shelley Duncan and Grimmace?
To answer the first, if the Indians are winning there will be very little desire to rock the boat and to make a move, just for the sake of making a move. Manny Acta doesn't manage like that, he stays the course as long as that course is equating to wins. If the Indians are winning in-spite of a struggling player or offense, that is completely different. However, as long as the team is winning, you got to think the chemistry and law of averages will work out for the struggling players. If the Indians are winning, then Damon will be used as a priority pinch hitter, and will spell Duncan, Choo, and Brantley(if he can convince the coaches he can play CF).
For the second things get more intriguing. If Shelley Duncan is struggling for a few weeks prior to Damon arriving, then you could see a platoon out in LF. This works great when you factor in how good Shelley Duncan is at pinch hitting. I am sure he doesn't like that label, but until he can establish himself as an everyday player, then teams will find the most value in him with that role. However, if Shelley Duncan is hitting great, and Grimmace doesn't turn things around, that's where things are interesting. How bad is the offense? If the offense is still putting up huge numbers as they did on this past road trip, do you sacrifice the defense to put Damon in the lineup? It's a lefty-lefty swap, because Shelley Duncan can play first base if you want to bench Grimmace. Now Duncan is a huge step down in defensive ability at 1st from Grimmace, but he isn't the biggest liability in the world either, so do you sacrifice defense in hope for more runs? This scenario in my opinion is the best scenario for the use of Damon, and then you gave Grimmace as a defensive specialist or trade bait. Problem for this theory to come true? The Indians will have to be losing AND the offense will need to be struggling. I don't want that to be the case just to see Damon and Duncan both play everyday. I will stick with Grimmace and his solid defense to keep the pitchers moving thru innings, and to keep getting wins any day over a few more hits.
Thoughts?
Monday, April 23, 2012
Tribe win A's Series
Forgive me if this isn't a full breakdown like some of the others, but
since I don't always get a chance to write analysis for each game over
the weekends, I am working on shortening the series summary. Here are
the results of each game.
Game 1: Cleveland 4 - Oakland 3
WP: Ubaldo Jimenez (2-0) LP: Graham Godfrey (0-3) SV: Chris Perez
(5) 1-2-3.
Game 2: Cleveland 5 - Oakland 1
WP: Jeanmar Gomez (1-0) LP: Brandon McCarthy (0-3) SV: Chris Perez
(6) Ducks on the pond....shut down a rally.
Game 3: Oakland 5 - Cleveland 1
WP: Tyson Ross(1-0) LP: Justin Masterson (0-2) **6.65 ERA
First of all regardless what I have to say, this has been a successful
road trip. The Tribe were struggling mightily in the first 2 series at
home to start the season, and then they hit the road for 9 games and
finished 7-2 against 3 teams they need to beat in order to contend. I
will take that any day, and they return home only a game back of the
Tigers.
Offensively Michael Brantley, Jason Kipnis, Shin-Soo Choo, and Travis
Hafner all had over 10 hits on the road trip. The Indians are leading
the league in walks, and are 3rd in runs scored. Don't forget this
whole A's series was without Asdrubal Cabrera who will be returning to
the lineup on Tuesday. Even in the loss on Sunday, the Indians did
create 6 walks even with only getting 4 hits. Against Oakland the Tribe
didn't extend their HR streak, which isn't all that surprising since it
is near impossible to hit HRs at night there. They were able to draw 19
walks against an Oakland pitching staff who had allowed the fewest walks
all season. Their best inning was in game 2 during the 8th inning when
they were clinging to a 2-1 lead. Oakland had threatened several times
in prior innings, and Vinnie Pestano was warm to come in for the bottom
half of the inning to get a hold. Well then the Tribe bats decided to
widen the lead a bit. Grimmace and Manahan were retired to start the
inning, and then the 2-out magic we had in Seattle came back. Jason
Donald got a single to the opposite field. Michael Brantley was finally
rewarded with a single up the middle. Brantley hit the ball very well
in all three games, but his liners and hard grounders were just hit
right where the defense was. Then the Indians started punishing Oakland
outfielders. Jason Kipnis tripled off the RF wall to score two, and in
the process A's RF Josh Reddick crashed into the wall and miss timed his
jump. Then Kipnis scored on a wild pitch from Fuentes. The next hitter
was Mr. Choo who doubled off the wall in LF, and in the process caused
Johnny Gomes to crash and barrel roll off of the LF wall after he had
the ball in his mitt but couldn't squeeze it shut. Great offensive
series for the Indians overall, only Shelley Duncan and Grimmace are
starting to get cold at the plate. Grimmace still can't get a hit with
runners in scoring position.
Offensive MVPs:
Game 1: PRONK! : 1 for 1, 1 run, and 3BB. Mannahan did have 3 RBIs,
but Pronk had the biggest effect.
Game 2: We are all Kipnisses: 4 for 5, 2 runs, and 3 RBIs.
Game 3: PRONK! : 1 for 2, 1RBI, and 2BB. He is hitting .357 with a
.509 OBP. That's a DH.
Pitching in this series is a real tough call to rate. I will say that
technically there really shouldn't be any complaints other than maybe
Masterson. However, Ubaldo was looking shaky for most of his start, and
I think we just have to accept that we will rarely get him deep into
games. He is simply too wild, and when he throws strikes batters can't
hit them, so he is going to have high pitch counts every time. It's a
bit stressful to watch, because inning-to-inning you really have no clue
what you will get him. One inning will take 30 minutes as he labors
along, and another may take 4 minutes, and he powers over hitters. He
left the game with the lead, so we can't complain about that, but he is
supposed to be an Ace of a team, and while that role is Masterson's, he
still has to get consistent. Speaking of Masterson, his command is
still off. Maybe a homestand will do him some good. I am not too
nervous about him yet, but we are 5 series in, and 4 starts into the
season, and only 1 start has he not labored thru. Either way, he left
this game with the Indians still in striking distance, so it could have
been worse. The bullpen mafia is still shutting down everyone no matter
when they enter a game. I believe they only allowed 1 run against
Oakland. Jeanmar Gomez actually got a start, and actually went as long
as he could and looked really really good. Only 5.1IP, but he was on a
strict pitch count since he really hasn't had a full start since Spring
Training following a rain delay, and getting thrown out in KC.
Pitching MVPs:
Game 1: Chris Perez: 1IP, 1 SV, 1 K, no hits or walks allowed.
Game 2: Jeanmar Gomez: 5.1IP, 4 hits, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K's.
Game 3: Rafael Perez: 2IP, 1 hit, and 3 K's.
Tidbits:
Grimmace is now 0-12 on the season with RISP. He had a huge sac bunt
against the M's in the 9th inning comeback, but in the same situation
against the A's, Acta didn't have him bunt the runners over and he
grounded into a DP. Interesting managerial move, but next time I am
hoping for the sacrifice. Not necessarily because he won't hit anybody
in, but behind him is Mannahan who is an RBI machine right now.
Final Thoughts on the A's: They are what you expected them to be, a
really good pitching team, and a really bad offensive team. However I
really like the future potential of this team if they can keep some of
their players. Tyson Ross looks like he could be an Ace of a staff if
he stays healthy, and the lineup has a lot of potential. We didn't see
CoCo Crisp because he had the flu, but the building blocks are there in
2B Jemile Weeks, RF Josh Reddick, and CF Yoenis Cespidis. Cespidis is
as good as advertised, and reminds me a lot of a young Vlad Guerrero
when batting. Reddick can blow a bubble while gunning it to homeplate
from RF so he is a keeper in my book. Probably shouldn't be a team's #3
hitter though, and that's where you can see the A's need more pieces.
Definitely a cornerstone for them though.
Next Game:
Tribe is home on Tuesday as we face the Royals and can hopefully stay
hot. Derek Lowe will take on Johnathon Sanchez. The same Johnathon
Sanchez that will start a brawl if he hits any Indians players, so if he
is wild again, expect there to be some fireworks. If he hits Choo
again, then Choo will get suspended for charging the mound and we will
see a lot more of Aaron Cunningham.
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 4 0 0 0 0 0 14 .196 .274 .304
J Kipnis 2B 3 0 1 0 1 1 18 .232 .290 .482
S Choo RF 4 1 1 0 0 1 13 .250 .382 .339
T Hafner DH 2 0 1 1 2 0 16 .357 .509 .571
J Lopez 1B 4 0 0 0 0 0 12 .176 .176 .412
J Hannahan 3B 3 0 1 0 1 0 16 .341 .429 .488
J Donald SS 4 0 0 0 0 2 11 .212 .222 .212
A Cunningham LF 3 0 0 0 0 1 12 .176 .263 .235
L Marson C 1 0 0 0 2 0 15 .111 .273 .222
Totals 28 1 4 1 6 5 127
BATTING
2B: S Choo (5, T Ross); T Hafner (3, T Ross); J Kipnis (1, T Ross)
RBI: T Hafner (8)
2-out RBI: T Hafner
GIDP: J Hannahan, T Hafner
Indians RISP: 1-6 (S Choo 0-1, J Lopez 0-1, L Marson 0-1, A Cunningham
0-1, J Donald 0-1, T Hafner 1-1)
Team LOB: 6
BASERUNNING
CS: J Hannahan (1, 3rd base by T Ross)
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
J Masterson
(L, 0-2) 5.0 6 4 4 6 2 1 111-61 6.65
R Perez 2.0 1 0 0 0 3 0 29-18 4.05
N Hagadone 1.0 2 1 1 0 0 0 15-10 2.70
Totals 8.0 9 5 5 6 5 1 155-89
PITCHING
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: J Masterson 14/27; R Perez 3/7; N
Hagadone 3/5
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: J Masterson
21-6-17-17; R Perez 5-6-3-4; N Hagadone 1-1-3-5
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: J Masterson 6-7; R Perez 2-1; N Hagadone 0-3
Game Scores: J Masterson 35
since I don't always get a chance to write analysis for each game over
the weekends, I am working on shortening the series summary. Here are
the results of each game.
Game 1: Cleveland 4 - Oakland 3
WP: Ubaldo Jimenez (2-0) LP: Graham Godfrey (0-3) SV: Chris Perez
(5) 1-2-3.
Game 2: Cleveland 5 - Oakland 1
WP: Jeanmar Gomez (1-0) LP: Brandon McCarthy (0-3) SV: Chris Perez
(6) Ducks on the pond....shut down a rally.
Game 3: Oakland 5 - Cleveland 1
WP: Tyson Ross(1-0) LP: Justin Masterson (0-2) **6.65 ERA
First of all regardless what I have to say, this has been a successful
road trip. The Tribe were struggling mightily in the first 2 series at
home to start the season, and then they hit the road for 9 games and
finished 7-2 against 3 teams they need to beat in order to contend. I
will take that any day, and they return home only a game back of the
Tigers.
Offensively Michael Brantley, Jason Kipnis, Shin-Soo Choo, and Travis
Hafner all had over 10 hits on the road trip. The Indians are leading
the league in walks, and are 3rd in runs scored. Don't forget this
whole A's series was without Asdrubal Cabrera who will be returning to
the lineup on Tuesday. Even in the loss on Sunday, the Indians did
create 6 walks even with only getting 4 hits. Against Oakland the Tribe
didn't extend their HR streak, which isn't all that surprising since it
is near impossible to hit HRs at night there. They were able to draw 19
walks against an Oakland pitching staff who had allowed the fewest walks
all season. Their best inning was in game 2 during the 8th inning when
they were clinging to a 2-1 lead. Oakland had threatened several times
in prior innings, and Vinnie Pestano was warm to come in for the bottom
half of the inning to get a hold. Well then the Tribe bats decided to
widen the lead a bit. Grimmace and Manahan were retired to start the
inning, and then the 2-out magic we had in Seattle came back. Jason
Donald got a single to the opposite field. Michael Brantley was finally
rewarded with a single up the middle. Brantley hit the ball very well
in all three games, but his liners and hard grounders were just hit
right where the defense was. Then the Indians started punishing Oakland
outfielders. Jason Kipnis tripled off the RF wall to score two, and in
the process A's RF Josh Reddick crashed into the wall and miss timed his
jump. Then Kipnis scored on a wild pitch from Fuentes. The next hitter
was Mr. Choo who doubled off the wall in LF, and in the process caused
Johnny Gomes to crash and barrel roll off of the LF wall after he had
the ball in his mitt but couldn't squeeze it shut. Great offensive
series for the Indians overall, only Shelley Duncan and Grimmace are
starting to get cold at the plate. Grimmace still can't get a hit with
runners in scoring position.
Offensive MVPs:
Game 1: PRONK! : 1 for 1, 1 run, and 3BB. Mannahan did have 3 RBIs,
but Pronk had the biggest effect.
Game 2: We are all Kipnisses: 4 for 5, 2 runs, and 3 RBIs.
Game 3: PRONK! : 1 for 2, 1RBI, and 2BB. He is hitting .357 with a
.509 OBP. That's a DH.
Pitching in this series is a real tough call to rate. I will say that
technically there really shouldn't be any complaints other than maybe
Masterson. However, Ubaldo was looking shaky for most of his start, and
I think we just have to accept that we will rarely get him deep into
games. He is simply too wild, and when he throws strikes batters can't
hit them, so he is going to have high pitch counts every time. It's a
bit stressful to watch, because inning-to-inning you really have no clue
what you will get him. One inning will take 30 minutes as he labors
along, and another may take 4 minutes, and he powers over hitters. He
left the game with the lead, so we can't complain about that, but he is
supposed to be an Ace of a team, and while that role is Masterson's, he
still has to get consistent. Speaking of Masterson, his command is
still off. Maybe a homestand will do him some good. I am not too
nervous about him yet, but we are 5 series in, and 4 starts into the
season, and only 1 start has he not labored thru. Either way, he left
this game with the Indians still in striking distance, so it could have
been worse. The bullpen mafia is still shutting down everyone no matter
when they enter a game. I believe they only allowed 1 run against
Oakland. Jeanmar Gomez actually got a start, and actually went as long
as he could and looked really really good. Only 5.1IP, but he was on a
strict pitch count since he really hasn't had a full start since Spring
Training following a rain delay, and getting thrown out in KC.
Pitching MVPs:
Game 1: Chris Perez: 1IP, 1 SV, 1 K, no hits or walks allowed.
Game 2: Jeanmar Gomez: 5.1IP, 4 hits, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K's.
Game 3: Rafael Perez: 2IP, 1 hit, and 3 K's.
Tidbits:
Grimmace is now 0-12 on the season with RISP. He had a huge sac bunt
against the M's in the 9th inning comeback, but in the same situation
against the A's, Acta didn't have him bunt the runners over and he
grounded into a DP. Interesting managerial move, but next time I am
hoping for the sacrifice. Not necessarily because he won't hit anybody
in, but behind him is Mannahan who is an RBI machine right now.
Final Thoughts on the A's: They are what you expected them to be, a
really good pitching team, and a really bad offensive team. However I
really like the future potential of this team if they can keep some of
their players. Tyson Ross looks like he could be an Ace of a staff if
he stays healthy, and the lineup has a lot of potential. We didn't see
CoCo Crisp because he had the flu, but the building blocks are there in
2B Jemile Weeks, RF Josh Reddick, and CF Yoenis Cespidis. Cespidis is
as good as advertised, and reminds me a lot of a young Vlad Guerrero
when batting. Reddick can blow a bubble while gunning it to homeplate
from RF so he is a keeper in my book. Probably shouldn't be a team's #3
hitter though, and that's where you can see the A's need more pieces.
Definitely a cornerstone for them though.
Next Game:
Tribe is home on Tuesday as we face the Royals and can hopefully stay
hot. Derek Lowe will take on Johnathon Sanchez. The same Johnathon
Sanchez that will start a brawl if he hits any Indians players, so if he
is wild again, expect there to be some fireworks. If he hits Choo
again, then Choo will get suspended for charging the mound and we will
see a lot more of Aaron Cunningham.
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 4 0 0 0 0 0 14 .196 .274 .304
J Kipnis 2B 3 0 1 0 1 1 18 .232 .290 .482
S Choo RF 4 1 1 0 0 1 13 .250 .382 .339
T Hafner DH 2 0 1 1 2 0 16 .357 .509 .571
J Lopez 1B 4 0 0 0 0 0 12 .176 .176 .412
J Hannahan 3B 3 0 1 0 1 0 16 .341 .429 .488
J Donald SS 4 0 0 0 0 2 11 .212 .222 .212
A Cunningham LF 3 0 0 0 0 1 12 .176 .263 .235
L Marson C 1 0 0 0 2 0 15 .111 .273 .222
Totals 28 1 4 1 6 5 127
BATTING
2B: S Choo (5, T Ross); T Hafner (3, T Ross); J Kipnis (1, T Ross)
RBI: T Hafner (8)
2-out RBI: T Hafner
GIDP: J Hannahan, T Hafner
Indians RISP: 1-6 (S Choo 0-1, J Lopez 0-1, L Marson 0-1, A Cunningham
0-1, J Donald 0-1, T Hafner 1-1)
Team LOB: 6
BASERUNNING
CS: J Hannahan (1, 3rd base by T Ross)
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
J Masterson
(L, 0-2) 5.0 6 4 4 6 2 1 111-61 6.65
R Perez 2.0 1 0 0 0 3 0 29-18 4.05
N Hagadone 1.0 2 1 1 0 0 0 15-10 2.70
Totals 8.0 9 5 5 6 5 1 155-89
PITCHING
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: J Masterson 14/27; R Perez 3/7; N
Hagadone 3/5
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: J Masterson
21-6-17-17; R Perez 5-6-3-4; N Hagadone 1-1-3-5
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: J Masterson 6-7; R Perez 2-1; N Hagadone 0-3
Game Scores: J Masterson 35
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Indians win series over M's
So once again I had a late night and didn't get to watch the whole game.
However, I still saw the first 6 innings, because Josh Tomlin and King
Felix really weren't playing around with hitters. I said Tomlin would
go toe to toe with Hernandez, and while I was semi-joking, he definitely
stepped up and matched Hernandez the whole way.
Tomlin or Hernandez?
A) 8.0IP, 5 hits, 1ER, and 7K's
B) 8.0IP, 5 hits, 1BB, 0ER, and 12K's
I think you could probably guess who is who since Tomlin isn't a
strikeout pitcher as much as Felix is. However, when you compare those
two lines, you see how good Tomlin threw. A huge assist to give us a
chance, and a much needed deep start to rest the bullpen. The other
thing I noticed that the stat sheet doesn't, is that Tomlin got some big
plays defensively to help him out the few times he was in trouble. The
throwing error by Kipnis did allow the run, but he had already gotten 2
great plays by Kotchman, a big time stop by Donald to prevent a run, and
Kipnis was everywhere. The outfielders did play for both teams, but
unless it was in the gap, both teams rarely were able to get a ball to
the outfield all night. It's fun to see slugfests, but a great pitching
matchup is also really fun to watch. Great games by both Tomlin and
Hernandez, unfortunately somebody had to lose.
And that honor was bestowed to Mariners closer Brandon League. Yes he
has been hot, but this time he didn't benefit from Felix keeping the
hitters off balance like Vargas did. Hernandez throws gas, and
everything moves, and he just owned us on his talent. League also
throws heat, but not as well as King Felix. The Indians seem to always
rock this guy when he comes in for saves, and last night was no
different. Indians got 2 runs in the 9th off of a bases loaded Jack
Hanahan single up the middle. The inning began with a Santana walk,
then a Pronk single, then a Kotchman sacrifice bunt, and then a Shelley
Duncan walk. Then Hannahan's clutch hitting. That put the Tribe up
2-1, and then it was Chris Perez time. 1-2-3 inning and game over.
Quick Observations
- I did some research, and this is Grimmace's numbers with runners in
scoring position thus far:0-9 w/ 1 BB, 1 RBI,& 2 SOs
- Chris Perez is 'irked' by the $750 twitter fine. Bud Selig better
not step near the plate in the 9th.
- Shelley Duncan is cooling down a bit. Not a good thing for him with
Damon coming in a few weeks. And Grady Sizemore began running, and
throwing.
- Trevor Crowe is hitting .467 in AAA. Somehow that only makes him 4th
in the International League. There aren't many good pitchers coming
thru that league if you ask me.
- Asdrubal Cabrera will be flying back to Cleveland on Sunday. Manny
Acta said that Hagadone will be sent down when they re-activate him.
Tough call for a kid pitching great out of the pen. However, a lot of
guys are pitching good out of there.
Next up for the Tribe is a trip to Oakland where we will be sending
Ubaldo, Jeanmar Gomez, and Justin Masterson to face the A's. The A's
will counter first with Graham Godfrey. Never heard of him, but since
he is an A's pitcher my guess he is the next Nuke LaLushe.
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 4 0 1 0 1 2 23 .209 .292 .326
J Kipnis 2B 5 0 0 0 0 2 24 .178 .224 .422
S Choo RF 4 0 0 0 0 1 16 .214 .389 .262
C Santana C 3 1 1 0 1 0 17 .256 .408 .538
T Hafner DH 3 0 2 0 1 0 18 .314 .415 .543
A Cunningham PR-DH 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 .231 .286 .308
C Kotchman 1B 3 0 0 0 0 2 16 .182 .234 .341
S Duncan LF 3 0 0 0 1 2 20 .265 .444 .471
J Hannahan 3B 4 0 2 2 0 1 8 .313 .405 .438
J Donald SS 4 0 1 0 0 3 13 .238 .250 .238
Totals 33 2 7 2 4 13 155
BATTING
2B: C Santana (2, F Hernandez); T Hafner (2, F Hernandez)
RBI: J Hannahan 2 (8)
S: C Kotchman
Indians RISP: 2-8 (M Brantley 1-1, S Choo 0-1, J Donald 0-1, J Hannahan
1-1, T Hafner 0-1, J Kipnis 0-2, C Kotchman 0-1)
Team LOB: 9
FIELDING
E: J Kipnis (1, throw)
DP: 1 (J Hannahan-J Kipnis-C Kotchman).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
J Tomlin
(W, 1-1) 8.0 5 1 1 0 7 0 96-71 4.86
C Perez
(S, 4) 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 10-6 4.76
Totals 9.0 5 1 1 0 8 0 106-77
PITCHING
WP: J Tomlin
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: J Tomlin 22/29; C Perez 2/3
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: J Tomlin
25-8-18-20; C Perez 3-1-0-2
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: J Tomlin 10-7; C Perez 1-1
Game Scores: J Tomlin 75
However, I still saw the first 6 innings, because Josh Tomlin and King
Felix really weren't playing around with hitters. I said Tomlin would
go toe to toe with Hernandez, and while I was semi-joking, he definitely
stepped up and matched Hernandez the whole way.
Tomlin or Hernandez?
A) 8.0IP, 5 hits, 1ER, and 7K's
B) 8.0IP, 5 hits, 1BB, 0ER, and 12K's
I think you could probably guess who is who since Tomlin isn't a
strikeout pitcher as much as Felix is. However, when you compare those
two lines, you see how good Tomlin threw. A huge assist to give us a
chance, and a much needed deep start to rest the bullpen. The other
thing I noticed that the stat sheet doesn't, is that Tomlin got some big
plays defensively to help him out the few times he was in trouble. The
throwing error by Kipnis did allow the run, but he had already gotten 2
great plays by Kotchman, a big time stop by Donald to prevent a run, and
Kipnis was everywhere. The outfielders did play for both teams, but
unless it was in the gap, both teams rarely were able to get a ball to
the outfield all night. It's fun to see slugfests, but a great pitching
matchup is also really fun to watch. Great games by both Tomlin and
Hernandez, unfortunately somebody had to lose.
And that honor was bestowed to Mariners closer Brandon League. Yes he
has been hot, but this time he didn't benefit from Felix keeping the
hitters off balance like Vargas did. Hernandez throws gas, and
everything moves, and he just owned us on his talent. League also
throws heat, but not as well as King Felix. The Indians seem to always
rock this guy when he comes in for saves, and last night was no
different. Indians got 2 runs in the 9th off of a bases loaded Jack
Hanahan single up the middle. The inning began with a Santana walk,
then a Pronk single, then a Kotchman sacrifice bunt, and then a Shelley
Duncan walk. Then Hannahan's clutch hitting. That put the Tribe up
2-1, and then it was Chris Perez time. 1-2-3 inning and game over.
Quick Observations
- I did some research, and this is Grimmace's numbers with runners in
scoring position thus far:0-9 w/ 1 BB, 1 RBI,& 2 SOs
- Chris Perez is 'irked' by the $750 twitter fine. Bud Selig better
not step near the plate in the 9th.
- Shelley Duncan is cooling down a bit. Not a good thing for him with
Damon coming in a few weeks. And Grady Sizemore began running, and
throwing.
- Trevor Crowe is hitting .467 in AAA. Somehow that only makes him 4th
in the International League. There aren't many good pitchers coming
thru that league if you ask me.
- Asdrubal Cabrera will be flying back to Cleveland on Sunday. Manny
Acta said that Hagadone will be sent down when they re-activate him.
Tough call for a kid pitching great out of the pen. However, a lot of
guys are pitching good out of there.
Next up for the Tribe is a trip to Oakland where we will be sending
Ubaldo, Jeanmar Gomez, and Justin Masterson to face the A's. The A's
will counter first with Graham Godfrey. Never heard of him, but since
he is an A's pitcher my guess he is the next Nuke LaLushe.
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 4 0 1 0 1 2 23 .209 .292 .326
J Kipnis 2B 5 0 0 0 0 2 24 .178 .224 .422
S Choo RF 4 0 0 0 0 1 16 .214 .389 .262
C Santana C 3 1 1 0 1 0 17 .256 .408 .538
T Hafner DH 3 0 2 0 1 0 18 .314 .415 .543
A Cunningham PR-DH 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 .231 .286 .308
C Kotchman 1B 3 0 0 0 0 2 16 .182 .234 .341
S Duncan LF 3 0 0 0 1 2 20 .265 .444 .471
J Hannahan 3B 4 0 2 2 0 1 8 .313 .405 .438
J Donald SS 4 0 1 0 0 3 13 .238 .250 .238
Totals 33 2 7 2 4 13 155
BATTING
2B: C Santana (2, F Hernandez); T Hafner (2, F Hernandez)
RBI: J Hannahan 2 (8)
S: C Kotchman
Indians RISP: 2-8 (M Brantley 1-1, S Choo 0-1, J Donald 0-1, J Hannahan
1-1, T Hafner 0-1, J Kipnis 0-2, C Kotchman 0-1)
Team LOB: 9
FIELDING
E: J Kipnis (1, throw)
DP: 1 (J Hannahan-J Kipnis-C Kotchman).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
J Tomlin
(W, 1-1) 8.0 5 1 1 0 7 0 96-71 4.86
C Perez
(S, 4) 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 10-6 4.76
Totals 9.0 5 1 1 0 8 0 106-77
PITCHING
WP: J Tomlin
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: J Tomlin 22/29; C Perez 2/3
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: J Tomlin
25-8-18-20; C Perez 3-1-0-2
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: J Tomlin 10-7; C Perez 1-1
Game Scores: J Tomlin 75
Thursday, April 19, 2012
It's Official. The Cleveland Indians will not be 81-0 on the road
So I was out last night, all night. And when I returned to my apartment
I sat down at 11:10pm and somewhat recall the first inning, and then
while getting ready this morning I caught the next two...and that was
it. This is the first game I wasn't going to fully watch all year, and
the Tribe responded with a 4-1 loss to Seattle. Lesson has been
learned, I will catch at least 78% of every game before I work so that
the Tribe gets my kharma for as much of the game as they can. When I
turned it off we were down 3-1, so while I missed the last 6 innings, I
did see most of the action it appears.
Derek Lowe got the start for the Indians, with the goal of eating up
some innings to save the bullpen, which has been used a lot this year
due to some extra inning games, and bad starts. However he could only
last 4.2 innings which isn't good. However, I could tell he wasn't
going to last long from what I saw. This was just one of those games he
couldn't locate the plate at all. When you allow a bases loaded walk,
you know the command just isn't there, and for him to make it thru the
innings that he did is pretty impressive. The sinker was a bit high all
night, and that results in fly balls, which is what happened in the
first when we fell behind 2-0 behind HRs by IIIIIIICCCCHHIIIIRROOOOOOO
and Chone Figgins.
The hitting had an off night against Jason Vargas who pitched pretty
well all night. He mixed up his pitches, he has a good fastball, and
then a big dip in the mph on his change-up and curve that kept our bats
off balance all night. Even with Acta giving Hannahan and Brantley off
against the lefty, the subs were actually the hitters last night.
Lopez, Cunningham, Santana, and Kipnis accounted for our 4 hits, and
Cunningham was the only run scored after he lead off an inning with a
double. Then Jason Donald bunted him over, and Kipnis hit a sacrifice
fly. Since I missed 6 innings of Indians scoreless baseball I have to
rely on the boxscore to determine what went wrong with the hitting,
which is always dangerous. All I can see is Vargas did his job, and we
were off balance. They brought in Wilhelmsen in the 8th for the hold,
and he usually owns us, and their closer Brandon League is hot right
now, and benefited from our hitters being confused for 8 innings.
Quick Observations:
Bullpen Mafia Does it again - Our starters did great the first time thru
the rotation, and since have been up and down. However once they leave
its not all bad, because our bullpen is the backbone of this team like
it was last season. After holding the fort down after Masterson allowed
8 runs, they did the same again for Lowe. They went 3.2 innings
allowing 0 runs, the only difference is the offense never was able to
get back in the game. Different guys last night too, Ascensio,
Hagadone, and Wheeler got the call.
Choo didn't get a hit, but... - Choo is hitting .237 early in the
season, and went hitless last night. But, he does have an OBP of .420
and walked 3 times last night too. Thus far what I have seen from Choo,
I like. He may not hit for a high average yet, but he will, and even if
he isn't hitting great, he cashes in everytime there is an RBI
opportunity.
Suspension - Jeanmar Gomez will be suspended 5 games for plunking
Moustakis back in the KC series. He is appealing and will make his
start against Oakland this weekend. Honestly, this is a dumb
suspension. It was a retaliation and intentional for sure. Yes
warnings were already issued, and then he still did it. However, a
suspension? No. He hit him in the lower back, clearly avoiding
anything that would be construed as 'dangerous', and it wasn't like he
went in the paper like Ubaldo and said he hated Moustakis. Let the boys
play. Hannahan got fined...he deserves it. Yet I think the league did
not suspend him only because by going to Seattle he has cooled down. He
seems much calmer right now, and I think that he is quitting the Pronk
Bars cold turkey.
I was wrong last time, but TONIGHT Josh Tomlin will show off his Cy
Young arm as he duels King Felix.
Go Tribe
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
J Donald SS 3 0 0 0 0 0 8 .235 .250 .235
J Kipnis 2B 3 0 1 1 0 1 18 .200 .250 .475
S Choo RF 1 0 0 0 3 1 23 .237 .420 .289
C Santana C 4 0 1 0 0 3 22 .250 .400 .528
T Hafner DH 3 0 0 0 1 1 13 .281 .378 .500
S Duncan LF 4 0 0 0 0 2 19 .290 .463 .516
J Lopez 3B 4 0 1 0 0 1 7 .231 .231 .538
C Kotchman 1B 4 0 0 0 0 0 11 .195 .250 .366
A Cunningham CF 3 1 1 0 0 0 9 .231 .286 .308
Totals 29 1 4 1 4 9 130
BATTING
2B: A Cunningham (1, J Vargas)
RBI: J Kipnis (8)
S: J Donald
SF: J Kipnis
Indians RISP: 0-4 (S Choo 0-1, C Santana 0-1, J Lopez 0-1, S Duncan 0-1)
Team LOB: 7
FIELDING
DP: 2 (J Donald-J Kipnis-C Kotchman, A Cunningham-C Kotchman).
Outfield Assist: A Cunningham (D Ackley at 1st base).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
D Lowe
(L, 2-1) 4.1 8 4 4 6 0 2 113-63 3.50
J Asencio 1.2 0 0 0 1 0 0 21-13 4.66
N Hagadone 1.0 0 0 0 0 2 0 15-9 0.00
D Wheeler 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 17-11 6.23
Totals 8.0 8 4 4 7 3 2 166-96
PITCHING
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: D Lowe 16/25; J Asencio 2/5; N
Hagadone 2/3; D Wheeler 2/3
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: D Lowe
17-2-27-17; J Asencio 3-2-4-4; N Hagadone 0-4-4-1; D Wheeler 2-2-5-2
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: D Lowe 6-6; J Asencio 2-2; N Hagadone 0-1; D
Wheeler 2-0
Game Scores: D Lowe 25
I sat down at 11:10pm and somewhat recall the first inning, and then
while getting ready this morning I caught the next two...and that was
it. This is the first game I wasn't going to fully watch all year, and
the Tribe responded with a 4-1 loss to Seattle. Lesson has been
learned, I will catch at least 78% of every game before I work so that
the Tribe gets my kharma for as much of the game as they can. When I
turned it off we were down 3-1, so while I missed the last 6 innings, I
did see most of the action it appears.
Derek Lowe got the start for the Indians, with the goal of eating up
some innings to save the bullpen, which has been used a lot this year
due to some extra inning games, and bad starts. However he could only
last 4.2 innings which isn't good. However, I could tell he wasn't
going to last long from what I saw. This was just one of those games he
couldn't locate the plate at all. When you allow a bases loaded walk,
you know the command just isn't there, and for him to make it thru the
innings that he did is pretty impressive. The sinker was a bit high all
night, and that results in fly balls, which is what happened in the
first when we fell behind 2-0 behind HRs by IIIIIIICCCCHHIIIIRROOOOOOO
and Chone Figgins.
The hitting had an off night against Jason Vargas who pitched pretty
well all night. He mixed up his pitches, he has a good fastball, and
then a big dip in the mph on his change-up and curve that kept our bats
off balance all night. Even with Acta giving Hannahan and Brantley off
against the lefty, the subs were actually the hitters last night.
Lopez, Cunningham, Santana, and Kipnis accounted for our 4 hits, and
Cunningham was the only run scored after he lead off an inning with a
double. Then Jason Donald bunted him over, and Kipnis hit a sacrifice
fly. Since I missed 6 innings of Indians scoreless baseball I have to
rely on the boxscore to determine what went wrong with the hitting,
which is always dangerous. All I can see is Vargas did his job, and we
were off balance. They brought in Wilhelmsen in the 8th for the hold,
and he usually owns us, and their closer Brandon League is hot right
now, and benefited from our hitters being confused for 8 innings.
Quick Observations:
Bullpen Mafia Does it again - Our starters did great the first time thru
the rotation, and since have been up and down. However once they leave
its not all bad, because our bullpen is the backbone of this team like
it was last season. After holding the fort down after Masterson allowed
8 runs, they did the same again for Lowe. They went 3.2 innings
allowing 0 runs, the only difference is the offense never was able to
get back in the game. Different guys last night too, Ascensio,
Hagadone, and Wheeler got the call.
Choo didn't get a hit, but... - Choo is hitting .237 early in the
season, and went hitless last night. But, he does have an OBP of .420
and walked 3 times last night too. Thus far what I have seen from Choo,
I like. He may not hit for a high average yet, but he will, and even if
he isn't hitting great, he cashes in everytime there is an RBI
opportunity.
Suspension - Jeanmar Gomez will be suspended 5 games for plunking
Moustakis back in the KC series. He is appealing and will make his
start against Oakland this weekend. Honestly, this is a dumb
suspension. It was a retaliation and intentional for sure. Yes
warnings were already issued, and then he still did it. However, a
suspension? No. He hit him in the lower back, clearly avoiding
anything that would be construed as 'dangerous', and it wasn't like he
went in the paper like Ubaldo and said he hated Moustakis. Let the boys
play. Hannahan got fined...he deserves it. Yet I think the league did
not suspend him only because by going to Seattle he has cooled down. He
seems much calmer right now, and I think that he is quitting the Pronk
Bars cold turkey.
I was wrong last time, but TONIGHT Josh Tomlin will show off his Cy
Young arm as he duels King Felix.
Go Tribe
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
J Donald SS 3 0 0 0 0 0 8 .235 .250 .235
J Kipnis 2B 3 0 1 1 0 1 18 .200 .250 .475
S Choo RF 1 0 0 0 3 1 23 .237 .420 .289
C Santana C 4 0 1 0 0 3 22 .250 .400 .528
T Hafner DH 3 0 0 0 1 1 13 .281 .378 .500
S Duncan LF 4 0 0 0 0 2 19 .290 .463 .516
J Lopez 3B 4 0 1 0 0 1 7 .231 .231 .538
C Kotchman 1B 4 0 0 0 0 0 11 .195 .250 .366
A Cunningham CF 3 1 1 0 0 0 9 .231 .286 .308
Totals 29 1 4 1 4 9 130
BATTING
2B: A Cunningham (1, J Vargas)
RBI: J Kipnis (8)
S: J Donald
SF: J Kipnis
Indians RISP: 0-4 (S Choo 0-1, C Santana 0-1, J Lopez 0-1, S Duncan 0-1)
Team LOB: 7
FIELDING
DP: 2 (J Donald-J Kipnis-C Kotchman, A Cunningham-C Kotchman).
Outfield Assist: A Cunningham (D Ackley at 1st base).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
D Lowe
(L, 2-1) 4.1 8 4 4 6 0 2 113-63 3.50
J Asencio 1.2 0 0 0 1 0 0 21-13 4.66
N Hagadone 1.0 0 0 0 0 2 0 15-9 0.00
D Wheeler 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 17-11 6.23
Totals 8.0 8 4 4 7 3 2 166-96
PITCHING
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: D Lowe 16/25; J Asencio 2/5; N
Hagadone 2/3; D Wheeler 2/3
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: D Lowe
17-2-27-17; J Asencio 3-2-4-4; N Hagadone 0-4-4-1; D Wheeler 2-2-5-2
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: D Lowe 6-6; J Asencio 2-2; N Hagadone 0-1; D
Wheeler 2-0
Game Scores: D Lowe 25
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Cardiac Tribe (Masterson vs. Millwood(SEA))
**I didn't view the whole game, but I did make it thru 7 innings, which
is when all the scoring happened, and since Chris Perez is turning into
Bob Wickman, I am glad I didn't get to watch him load the bases in the
9th before getting the save. Now to the summary.
The game started off solid as the Tribe raced to an early 1-0 lead in
the first, and Justin Masterson flew thru the first two innings just
like we expected him to start. A much better performance than his last
start was appearing to take place. However, then he almost hit Brendan
Ryan which is no big deal. However following that he just got extremely
wild and served up layups the rest of his time out there. The next
batter John Jaso hit a 2R HR to give the Mariners a 2-1 lead after 3,
and then everybody in the 4th inning basically hit the ball right in
front of Choo for a hit and they scored 6 runs in the 4th inning to make
it an 8-1 game. That wasn't very fun to watch, but hopefully Masterson
can get his rhythm back. He seems to be doing very bad in cold weather,
and I don't know if that is affecting his grip, but other than opening
day, his command has been all over the place(and it has been cold since
then too). However the new guy in town Nick Hagadone got out us out of
the 4th inning unscathed, and then the bullpen proceeded to not allow a
run the rest of the game. #Bullpen Mafia. #Huge. #BestInTheWorld. Ok
I am done with that, but I am making my blog technologically advanced
and hip with the times, so whatever.
After that awful performance in the 4th, the Tribe needed to respond in
the 5th to have a shot in this game. Well, the batters who still seemed
to be swinging the ball well in the first 3 innings, started to relive
their lives in KC in the top of the 5th. We put up a 7 spot, chased
Kevin Millwood from the game, and the gamely HR was hit by Carlos
Santana. A three run blast to pull us within 1. Then later in the
inning Jason Donald hit a rope to RF to tie it up at 8. Donald will be
playing the remainder of the road trip because the Tribe placed A-Cab on
the bereavement list. So far the Indians pulled all the right strings,
because Donald had both the tying and go-ahead RBIs in this game, and
the replacement on the roster for Cabrera was Hagadone who saved us in
the 4th. The Tribe wouldn't score again until the 7th when Donald would
drive in Shelley Duncan for the go-ahead run to put us up 9-8. From
there the bullpen just kept their groove and we escaped a game we
probably shouldn't have won, but we played better than they did for 8
innings, so that usually means a win.
My observations is that Justin Smoak is really good. Not that Grimmace
is considerably worse, but Smoak did go 4 for 5 and had an unassisted DP
when Grimmace lined out to him while a runner was on first. Grimmace is
hitting a lot better on the road which is great. However, I am pretty
sure he has 0 hits or walks with runners in scoring position. Now that
isn't a huge deal because not everyone is a run producer, but in tie
games late, he couldn't advance the runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs.
He tried to bunt, that didn't work, and then proceeded to strike out.
Luckily Donald got a hit that at least got one of those two in. Either
way, not too much to complain about offensively, EVERYBODY hit,
including defensive replacement Aaron Cunningham. The Indians were 6-14
hitting with runners in scoring position, so they are in a zone right
now.
The signing of Johnny Damon was also made official yesterday, and he
could possibly join the big league roster later this month or early May.
The likely candidates to be called down to the minors will be either
Cunningham or Jose Lopez. Damon apparently can not play CF anymore,
which means when he gets reps it will be at DH or LF. Problem is that
if you look out in LF, you will see Shelley Duncan with one leg up and
spreading his scent. Dude has a .333avg and a .514 OBP right now, you
are crazy to bench him unless you seek that defensive sub late in the
game. You won't be benching Choo, so Damon may be relegated to spot
starts for some time unless an injury occurs. And by the way, we are
still expecting Grady Sizemore to return at some point around the
All-Star break. Things are looking up for the Tribe OF.
Keep an eye on Jack Hannahan. His hitting is off to a really good start
just like this time last season, however he already has 4 errors.
That's not good, but 2 of them have been when he was shifted to SS so
maybe he gets a little bit of a pass. However, if Chisenhall is hitting
good, Hannahan hits around his career average w/ a similar pace of
errors, I would not be surprised to see the Chisenhall era officially
begin even if the Tribe are still in the hunt.
Carlos Santana will not hit in the .220's this year.
That's all I got. Next up for the Tribe is Derek Lowe vs. Jason Vargas. GO TRIBE
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 5 2 1 1 0 0 16 .205 .279 .333
J Kipnis 2B 5 1 1 0 0 1 22 .189 .250 .486
S Choo RF 5 1 2 2 0 2 18 .243 .391 .297
C Santana C 4 1 1 3 1 1 19 .250 .415 .563
T Hafner DH 5 1 2 1 0 1 19 .310 .394 .552
S Duncan LF 2 1 1 0 2 0 20 .333 .514 .593
A Cunningham LF 1 0 1 0 0 0 4 .200 .273 .200
C Kotchman 1B 5 0 1 0 0 1 22 .216 .275 .405
J Hannahan 3B 3 1 1 0 2 1 23 .286 .394 .429
J Donald SS 4 1 2 2 0 2 16 .286 .294 .286
Totals 39 9 13 9 5 9 179
BATTING
2B: J Hannahan (1, K Millwood); C Kotchman (1, E Ramirez)
HR: C Santana (3, 5th inning off K Millwood 2 on, 0 Out)
RBI: T Hafner (6), M Brantley (4), S Choo 2 (8), C Santana 3 (9), J
Donald 2 (3)
SF: J Donald
2-out RBI: T Hafner, J Donald
Indians RISP: 6-14 (M Brantley 0-3, S Choo 1-1, C Santana 1-1, J Donald
2-3, J Hannahan 0-1, S Duncan 0-1, T Hafner 1-1, J Kipnis 1-1, C
Kotchman 0-2)
Team LOB: 9
BASERUNNING
SB: M Brantley (1, 2nd base off K Millwood/J Montero)
FIELDING
E: J Hannahan (4, ground ball)
DP: 1 (J Kipnis-J Donald-C Kotchman).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
J Masterson 3.2 7 8 8 4 1 1 71-39 6.48
N Hagadone 1.1 0 0 0 1 2 0 30-20 0.00
R Perez
(W, 1-0) 1.0 1 0 0 0 0 0 16-9 5.79
J Smith
(H, 3) 1.0 0 0 0 1 1 0 17-9 3.00
V Pestano
(H, 2) 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 20-13 3.18
C Perez
(S, 3) 1.0 2 0 0 1 0 0 24-13 5.79
Totals 9.0 10 8 8 7 5 1 178-103
PITCHING
HBP: J Jaso (By J Masterson)
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: J Masterson 12/22; N Hagadone 5/6; R
Perez 2/4; J Smith 1/4; V Pestano 2/3; C Perez 3/6
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: J Masterson
12-4-7-16; N Hagadone 3-6-8-3; R Perez 3-1-1-4; J Smith 4-2-1-2; V
Pestano 7-0-4-2; C Perez 1-1-6-5
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: J Masterson 7-3; N Hagadone 0-2; R Perez 1-2; J
Smith 0-2; V Pestano 2-0; C Perez 1-2
Game Scores: J Masterson 12
is when all the scoring happened, and since Chris Perez is turning into
Bob Wickman, I am glad I didn't get to watch him load the bases in the
9th before getting the save. Now to the summary.
The game started off solid as the Tribe raced to an early 1-0 lead in
the first, and Justin Masterson flew thru the first two innings just
like we expected him to start. A much better performance than his last
start was appearing to take place. However, then he almost hit Brendan
Ryan which is no big deal. However following that he just got extremely
wild and served up layups the rest of his time out there. The next
batter John Jaso hit a 2R HR to give the Mariners a 2-1 lead after 3,
and then everybody in the 4th inning basically hit the ball right in
front of Choo for a hit and they scored 6 runs in the 4th inning to make
it an 8-1 game. That wasn't very fun to watch, but hopefully Masterson
can get his rhythm back. He seems to be doing very bad in cold weather,
and I don't know if that is affecting his grip, but other than opening
day, his command has been all over the place(and it has been cold since
then too). However the new guy in town Nick Hagadone got out us out of
the 4th inning unscathed, and then the bullpen proceeded to not allow a
run the rest of the game. #Bullpen Mafia. #Huge. #BestInTheWorld. Ok
I am done with that, but I am making my blog technologically advanced
and hip with the times, so whatever.
After that awful performance in the 4th, the Tribe needed to respond in
the 5th to have a shot in this game. Well, the batters who still seemed
to be swinging the ball well in the first 3 innings, started to relive
their lives in KC in the top of the 5th. We put up a 7 spot, chased
Kevin Millwood from the game, and the gamely HR was hit by Carlos
Santana. A three run blast to pull us within 1. Then later in the
inning Jason Donald hit a rope to RF to tie it up at 8. Donald will be
playing the remainder of the road trip because the Tribe placed A-Cab on
the bereavement list. So far the Indians pulled all the right strings,
because Donald had both the tying and go-ahead RBIs in this game, and
the replacement on the roster for Cabrera was Hagadone who saved us in
the 4th. The Tribe wouldn't score again until the 7th when Donald would
drive in Shelley Duncan for the go-ahead run to put us up 9-8. From
there the bullpen just kept their groove and we escaped a game we
probably shouldn't have won, but we played better than they did for 8
innings, so that usually means a win.
My observations is that Justin Smoak is really good. Not that Grimmace
is considerably worse, but Smoak did go 4 for 5 and had an unassisted DP
when Grimmace lined out to him while a runner was on first. Grimmace is
hitting a lot better on the road which is great. However, I am pretty
sure he has 0 hits or walks with runners in scoring position. Now that
isn't a huge deal because not everyone is a run producer, but in tie
games late, he couldn't advance the runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs.
He tried to bunt, that didn't work, and then proceeded to strike out.
Luckily Donald got a hit that at least got one of those two in. Either
way, not too much to complain about offensively, EVERYBODY hit,
including defensive replacement Aaron Cunningham. The Indians were 6-14
hitting with runners in scoring position, so they are in a zone right
now.
The signing of Johnny Damon was also made official yesterday, and he
could possibly join the big league roster later this month or early May.
The likely candidates to be called down to the minors will be either
Cunningham or Jose Lopez. Damon apparently can not play CF anymore,
which means when he gets reps it will be at DH or LF. Problem is that
if you look out in LF, you will see Shelley Duncan with one leg up and
spreading his scent. Dude has a .333avg and a .514 OBP right now, you
are crazy to bench him unless you seek that defensive sub late in the
game. You won't be benching Choo, so Damon may be relegated to spot
starts for some time unless an injury occurs. And by the way, we are
still expecting Grady Sizemore to return at some point around the
All-Star break. Things are looking up for the Tribe OF.
Keep an eye on Jack Hannahan. His hitting is off to a really good start
just like this time last season, however he already has 4 errors.
That's not good, but 2 of them have been when he was shifted to SS so
maybe he gets a little bit of a pass. However, if Chisenhall is hitting
good, Hannahan hits around his career average w/ a similar pace of
errors, I would not be surprised to see the Chisenhall era officially
begin even if the Tribe are still in the hunt.
Carlos Santana will not hit in the .220's this year.
That's all I got. Next up for the Tribe is Derek Lowe vs. Jason Vargas. GO TRIBE
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 5 2 1 1 0 0 16 .205 .279 .333
J Kipnis 2B 5 1 1 0 0 1 22 .189 .250 .486
S Choo RF 5 1 2 2 0 2 18 .243 .391 .297
C Santana C 4 1 1 3 1 1 19 .250 .415 .563
T Hafner DH 5 1 2 1 0 1 19 .310 .394 .552
S Duncan LF 2 1 1 0 2 0 20 .333 .514 .593
A Cunningham LF 1 0 1 0 0 0 4 .200 .273 .200
C Kotchman 1B 5 0 1 0 0 1 22 .216 .275 .405
J Hannahan 3B 3 1 1 0 2 1 23 .286 .394 .429
J Donald SS 4 1 2 2 0 2 16 .286 .294 .286
Totals 39 9 13 9 5 9 179
BATTING
2B: J Hannahan (1, K Millwood); C Kotchman (1, E Ramirez)
HR: C Santana (3, 5th inning off K Millwood 2 on, 0 Out)
RBI: T Hafner (6), M Brantley (4), S Choo 2 (8), C Santana 3 (9), J
Donald 2 (3)
SF: J Donald
2-out RBI: T Hafner, J Donald
Indians RISP: 6-14 (M Brantley 0-3, S Choo 1-1, C Santana 1-1, J Donald
2-3, J Hannahan 0-1, S Duncan 0-1, T Hafner 1-1, J Kipnis 1-1, C
Kotchman 0-2)
Team LOB: 9
BASERUNNING
SB: M Brantley (1, 2nd base off K Millwood/J Montero)
FIELDING
E: J Hannahan (4, ground ball)
DP: 1 (J Kipnis-J Donald-C Kotchman).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
J Masterson 3.2 7 8 8 4 1 1 71-39 6.48
N Hagadone 1.1 0 0 0 1 2 0 30-20 0.00
R Perez
(W, 1-0) 1.0 1 0 0 0 0 0 16-9 5.79
J Smith
(H, 3) 1.0 0 0 0 1 1 0 17-9 3.00
V Pestano
(H, 2) 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 20-13 3.18
C Perez
(S, 3) 1.0 2 0 0 1 0 0 24-13 5.79
Totals 9.0 10 8 8 7 5 1 178-103
PITCHING
HBP: J Jaso (By J Masterson)
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: J Masterson 12/22; N Hagadone 5/6; R
Perez 2/4; J Smith 1/4; V Pestano 2/3; C Perez 3/6
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: J Masterson
12-4-7-16; N Hagadone 3-6-8-3; R Perez 3-1-1-4; J Smith 4-2-1-2; V
Pestano 7-0-4-2; C Perez 1-1-6-5
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: J Masterson 7-3; N Hagadone 0-2; R Perez 1-2; J
Smith 0-2; V Pestano 2-0; C Perez 1-2
Game Scores: J Masterson 12
Monday, April 16, 2012
And That Gentlemen...is how we do that...
I need to buy a broom. After struggling at home, the Tribe had an off day on Thursday, and then traveled to KC with an ice cold offense and a 1-4 record. Rumors swirled about a Johnny Damon signing to maybe spark this offense(he is expected to sign today officially pending a physical), and the starters were on fire, but no run support to speak of. Well, the Tribe traveled to KC, and then swept the Royals while scoring 32 runs in the series, and have still homered in every game this season. Even Grimmace got 2 HRs and 2 SBs in the series. Let's get to the recap, I was busy all weekend, so I didn't have time to blog it, so instead you get a full series update. Spoiler alert: We are now 4-4.
Game 1 (Derek Lowe vs. Luke Hochevar)
The cold Indians offense set the tone for the series in the first inning by scoring 7 runs. We batted around, and Brantley who went 1 for 18 at home, had two hits in the first inning, which magically made his average all the more better. This inning was filled with hard hits, even the outs were ropes, which was nice to see finally. Every player got a hit this game except for Travis Hafner who went 0-5. However, he redeemed himself so don't judge him too much. Our gamely HR was in the 9th inning when A-Cab homered to deep left-center, and that sealed the Tribes 8-3 win. The offense hitting was amazing, but the red flag is still there. We had 1 inning where we put up runs, and then didn't do diddly until the 9th on a solo HR. A good hitting offense would be applying pressure in multiple innings, off of multiple pitchers, not just having one good inning and then going 1-2-3 with a few walks inbetween the rest of the game. So I was pumped we got 8 runs, but still a bit reserved after the game, because really we lost 2-1 if you ignored the 1st inning. However, it's a 9 inning game, so I will take a 8-3 win.
Derek Lowe looked good again. He is now 2-0 for the Tribe with a 1.98 ERA. He did give up a lot of hits in this game (11 total), but did what he does and that is get timely ground ball outs throughout the game, and the Royals really shot themselves in the foot by grounding into 3 DPs. He gave up 3 runs in 6.2 innings, and then the bullpen mafia came in (Sipp, Smith, and Pestano) and didn't allow any more runs. Tribe wins 8-3 and now on to Saturday's game...
Game 2 (Jeanmar Gomez vs. Johnathon Sanchez)
Jeanmar Gomez got his first start of the season after winning the 5th starter position, and he went 2.0innings and allowed 1 run. He looked really good actually. Why did he only go one inning? Well allow me to give you a flashback to last June, when the Indians faced the Giants and their starter Johnathon Sanchez. Sanchez hit Shin Soo Choo on the hand and broke a bone in his thumb, essentially costing him the rest of the season, because even when he came back it was an issue the rest of the year. This year Choo wears a protective guard on his hand to hopefully prevent that from happening again. Since he got pegged by Chris Sale in the hand during the White Sox series I am guessing it is working since he is just fine. Now during the 3rd inning of this game, Sanchez again plunks Choo. Choo started yelling at Sanchez and he said after the game that he knew Sanchez didn't do it intentionally, but because of last season he may have been a bit "sensitive". Well the benches cleared, and for some odd reason Jack Hanahan is the guy who comes sprinting to Sanchez and starts grabbing him on his jersey and screaming at him. This will be a theme for Hanahan, who either has some roid rage from all the Pronk bars he eats, or gets a bit too much caught up into "protection" mode. Either way, cooler heads prevailed, warnings were issued, and then Choo took his base. Well Jeanmar Gomez in the bottom of the 3rd decided that he would protect his guy and still threw at the first batter he faced. Because warnings were issued, Gomez and Acta were automatically ejected. Well because Moustakis started to yell at Gomez, in came our fearless protecter at full speed to get back in the face of about 5 Royals. This time I am positive it had to be the Pronk bars. Hanahan was also ejected at this point, I have to believe he just wanted Jason Kipnis to not have an off day, or he may be crazy. Nobody throws at Hanahan, and I could have made a few guesses as to the first guy off the bench that would stick his head in the middle of a yelling match trying to get into a fight, and he isn't close to the first on that list. After this series, he is the first guy I will assume that will try to fight somebody. Prior to this I would have assumed Lou Marson, and then Aaron Cunningham would be the first two guys to try and pick a fight. Cunningham because he needs to get noticed by the coaches somehow, he isn't hitting, he isn't getting a lot of PT, at least be the "Enforcer" of the team. And Lou Marson loves to yell at opponents, so I just assumed that he would get a fist thrown his way at some point. Luckily for us, Josh Tomlin was in the bullpen that game, because we had to skip his start, so we did have somebody to eat a few innings. Now to the actual game...
In this game the offense looked really good. We had one big inning that we scored 5 runs, but we also were able to score in other innings too, so this is the best game thus far for our offense. Our gamely HRs were hit by Grimmace and Kipnis. More importantly we had 7 extra-base hits, and went 5-12 with RISP. Kipnis came off the bench to replace Hanahan, and he proceeded to go 2-3 with 2 RBIs which was a good boost. Choo even got the last laugh by hitting the go ahead 2 run double in the 10th inning to deep left center.
Pitching left a little to be desired, but since this was Sandy Alomar's first game calling the shots with Acta ejected early, you got a sense of what type of manager he is. He is definitely a match-up guy, and he emptied out the bullpen using everyone except for Dan Wheeler. Pestano blew the hold in the 8th inning, which allowed Asencio to get his first win with the Tribe, and Chris Perez made quick and easy work of the Royals 4-6 hitters in the 10th for his second save. The bullpen didn't really hold much of anything as Tomlin got roughed up, and so did most of the guys who really you could tell were trying to just hold on for dear life. Fortunately one swing by Choo in the 10th completely reversed the momentum, because following a 4 run 5th inning, we were up 9-2 and then just held on until we ended up winning 11-9 in 10.
We finally got an extra inning win, and having clinched our first series win of the season it was onto Sunday, and the return of Ubaldo Jimenez from suspension....
Game 3 Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Luis Mendoza
Yes the Royals have a starter named Luis Mendoza, I am sure he can skate really fast...it's just that he has a problem stopping. The boxscore for the Tribe is below for this game since it somewhat sums up the improvements of EVERYBODY's numbers, except for the bullpen mafia. The Indians scored runs in 3 innings, but when you score 6, 4, and 3 runs in those innings, you are having a big day. The gamely homers in this game were by Grimmace, Kipnis(back-to-back for Grimmace/Kipnis), Duncan, and Pronk. Pronk's home run went to right field. Well, actually it is the first homerun to land in the bar beyond the right field bleachers, and the measurement by ESPN is 481ft, but during the game they said 454ft, but let's just agree that he was looking for a curve, got it, and then crushed it. Shelley Duncan's HR was just as clearly a no-doubter, but after Pronk hit his, like Larry Doby breaking the color barrier in the American League, it kind of gets overlooked. Everyone who got an AB in this game got a hit. Brantley, Hafner, and Grimmace led the way with 3 hits each. Santana got the game off, and Marson got his first hit of the season with a timely double that drove in a run. The Indians got runs off of every Royals pitcher, except for CF Mitch Maier who came in the 9th to pitch. Kind of embarrassing that we couldn't get a run off of him, or is it embarrassing that he was the only one that pitched that didn't allow a run? Tough call. The name of the game was 2 out hitting. The Indians scored 12 of their 13 runs with 2 outs. The only run not scored with 2 outs with the lead-off HR by Pronk in the 5th. What is even more impressive is that most of the time, the Indians started with nobody on base with 2 outs, making the manufacturing of runs all the more impressive.
Jimenez labored to say the least to get thru 5 innings. He threw 114 pitches and gave up 4 runs. Not ideal, but it was good enough for a win. The issue with Jimenez all season will be his command, he was clearly not as in control as he was in his first start, but he still got thru 5 innings, and if maybe 35% of his starts he is wild, getting a win during one of them is a nice result. Hopefully he will get it back together the next time out. The bullpen took over, and really didn't have any problems and just got outs to clinch the sweep and give the Indians a 13-7 win.
So in conclusion, here are my final thoughts on the series. Shelley Duncan is still taking leaks in LF, and has solidified himself as the starting LF barring injury or going 0-40. He has timely hitting, raw power, and is starting to get respect from managers as the Royals attempted some serious defensive shifting during his at-bats. Choo still owns the Royals, as I think he had 6 RBIs during this series alone, and Brantley had about 6 hits during the series which isn't too shabby at all. A-Cab looked good both offensively and defensively, and I am feeling really comfortable about his offense this year as he appears locked in. In three games the Indians not only hit the ball a lot, but they drew 16 walks in the process. Shelly Duncan has an OBP of .485 and Santana is at a lowly .417 OBP. Defensively the best play was seeing Santana throw out Jarrod Dyson attempting to steal on Saturday. This guy was a call-up from AAA who really made some mistakes in CF the first two games that gave the Indians a lot of runs, but he did have like 7 SBs in AAA before the call-up. So when he ran, and Santana gunned him out I was impressed, especially since we were tied at the time, and Santana needs to get some of these speedsters out that way his arm gets the respect that Marson does. That will take a lot of the pressure off our pitchers and defense.
The pitching left a bit to be desired, but they were all strange games. Lowe looked the best all weekend, and the bullpen really only labored thru Saturday's game. Not worried about the bullpen at all, and while Ascencio is giving up some runs, he is still new to the majors, and he looks like a very solid right-hander from our pen while he is up here. He was a closer in the Braves system, so if we can stop using him 2-3 innings at a time and get him down to 1.0 innings during outings, I think he will settle down and complement our team nicely.
You can never undervalue division wins, and sweeping the Royals is a great way to make up for the series loss to the White Sox. The Royals clearly missed Melky Cabrera and Wilson Betemit destroying us like they did last season. However Mike Moustakis had a great series defensively and offensively. I don't think anybody on their team impressed me more than him, that guy looks like he could be a gold glove caliber player at 3rd, and his bat finds a lot of gaps. Billy Butler is still a very underrated DH, and a doubles machine. Put him in a big market, and that guy would get the same respect a David Ortiz or Paul Konerko get.
Indians have an off day on Monday that will help rest the bullpen, but hopefully doesn't cool down the offense. We are going to Seattle to face the Mariners, and first up will be Masterson vs. Millwood at 10:05. Looks like we will have Johnny Damon signed by then, so expect him to join the Clippers later this week, who by the way are 8-2 I believe and just rolling as expected.
Greybeard out...
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 6 1 3 2 0 0 19 .206 .289 .353
A Cabrera SS 5 1 1 0 1 1 22 .282 .333 .513
S Choo RF 5 1 1 2 0 1 20 .219 .390 .281
A Cunningham RF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .111 .200 .111
T Hafner DH 4 2 3 1 1 1 16 .292 .393 .583
S Duncan LF 2 3 1 3 3 0 29 .320 .485 .600
C Kotchman 1B 4 3 3 2 1 0 22 .219 .286 .406
J Kipnis 2B 4 1 1 1 1 1 28 .188 .257 .531
J Hannahan 3B 5 0 1 1 0 1 10 .280 .357 .400
L Marson C 5 1 1 1 0 1 19 .125 .125 .250
Totals 40 13 15 13 7 6 185
BATTING
2B: S Choo (2, L Mendoza); L Marson (1, J Mijares); M Brantley (3, J Mijares)
HR: S Duncan (2, 3rd inning off L Mendoza 2 on, 2 Out); T Hafner (2, 5th inning off L Mendoza 0 on, 0 Out); C Kotchman (2, 8th inning off L Coleman 1 on, 2 Out); J Kipnis (3, 8th inning off L Coleman 0 on, 2 Out)
RBI: S Choo 2 (6), S Duncan 3 (6), J Hannahan (6), T Hafner (5), L Marson (1), M Brantley 2 (3), C Kotchman 2 (4), J Kipnis (7)
2-out RBI: S Choo 2, S Duncan 3, J Hannahan, L Marson, M Brantley 2, C Kotchman 2, J Kipnis
GIDP: S Duncan, A Cabrera
Indians RISP: 5-12 (M Brantley 1-1, S Choo 1-2, L Marson 1-2, J Hannahan 1-3, S Duncan 1-1, J Kipnis 0-2, C Kotchman 0-1)
Team LOB: 7
BASERUNNING
SB: C Kotchman (2, 2nd base off L Mendoza/B Pena)
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
U Jimenez
(W, 1-0) 5.0 9 4 4 3 5 0 112-70 4.50
R Perez 0.2 1 1 1 1 0 0 14-7 7.36
D Wheeler 1.1 0 0 0 0 0 0 12-9 8.10
T Sipp 1.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8-4 13.50
J Asencio 1.0 3 2 2 0 2 0 29-17 5.63
Totals 9.0 13 7 7 4 7 0 175-107
PITCHING
WP: U Jimenez; J Asencio
Balk: R Perez
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: U Jimenez 16/27; R Perez 2/4; D Wheeler 2/4; T Sipp 2/3; J Asencio 2/6
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: U Jimenez 23-8-20-19; R Perez 2-1-1-3; D Wheeler 2-0-3-4; T Sipp 1-0-1-2; J Asencio 5-3-5-4
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: U Jimenez 7-3; R Perez 0-2; D Wheeler 2-2; T Sipp 1-2; J Asencio 0-1
Game Scores: U Jimenez 35
Game 1 (Derek Lowe vs. Luke Hochevar)
The cold Indians offense set the tone for the series in the first inning by scoring 7 runs. We batted around, and Brantley who went 1 for 18 at home, had two hits in the first inning, which magically made his average all the more better. This inning was filled with hard hits, even the outs were ropes, which was nice to see finally. Every player got a hit this game except for Travis Hafner who went 0-5. However, he redeemed himself so don't judge him too much. Our gamely HR was in the 9th inning when A-Cab homered to deep left-center, and that sealed the Tribes 8-3 win. The offense hitting was amazing, but the red flag is still there. We had 1 inning where we put up runs, and then didn't do diddly until the 9th on a solo HR. A good hitting offense would be applying pressure in multiple innings, off of multiple pitchers, not just having one good inning and then going 1-2-3 with a few walks inbetween the rest of the game. So I was pumped we got 8 runs, but still a bit reserved after the game, because really we lost 2-1 if you ignored the 1st inning. However, it's a 9 inning game, so I will take a 8-3 win.
Derek Lowe looked good again. He is now 2-0 for the Tribe with a 1.98 ERA. He did give up a lot of hits in this game (11 total), but did what he does and that is get timely ground ball outs throughout the game, and the Royals really shot themselves in the foot by grounding into 3 DPs. He gave up 3 runs in 6.2 innings, and then the bullpen mafia came in (Sipp, Smith, and Pestano) and didn't allow any more runs. Tribe wins 8-3 and now on to Saturday's game...
Game 2 (Jeanmar Gomez vs. Johnathon Sanchez)
Jeanmar Gomez got his first start of the season after winning the 5th starter position, and he went 2.0innings and allowed 1 run. He looked really good actually. Why did he only go one inning? Well allow me to give you a flashback to last June, when the Indians faced the Giants and their starter Johnathon Sanchez. Sanchez hit Shin Soo Choo on the hand and broke a bone in his thumb, essentially costing him the rest of the season, because even when he came back it was an issue the rest of the year. This year Choo wears a protective guard on his hand to hopefully prevent that from happening again. Since he got pegged by Chris Sale in the hand during the White Sox series I am guessing it is working since he is just fine. Now during the 3rd inning of this game, Sanchez again plunks Choo. Choo started yelling at Sanchez and he said after the game that he knew Sanchez didn't do it intentionally, but because of last season he may have been a bit "sensitive". Well the benches cleared, and for some odd reason Jack Hanahan is the guy who comes sprinting to Sanchez and starts grabbing him on his jersey and screaming at him. This will be a theme for Hanahan, who either has some roid rage from all the Pronk bars he eats, or gets a bit too much caught up into "protection" mode. Either way, cooler heads prevailed, warnings were issued, and then Choo took his base. Well Jeanmar Gomez in the bottom of the 3rd decided that he would protect his guy and still threw at the first batter he faced. Because warnings were issued, Gomez and Acta were automatically ejected. Well because Moustakis started to yell at Gomez, in came our fearless protecter at full speed to get back in the face of about 5 Royals. This time I am positive it had to be the Pronk bars. Hanahan was also ejected at this point, I have to believe he just wanted Jason Kipnis to not have an off day, or he may be crazy. Nobody throws at Hanahan, and I could have made a few guesses as to the first guy off the bench that would stick his head in the middle of a yelling match trying to get into a fight, and he isn't close to the first on that list. After this series, he is the first guy I will assume that will try to fight somebody. Prior to this I would have assumed Lou Marson, and then Aaron Cunningham would be the first two guys to try and pick a fight. Cunningham because he needs to get noticed by the coaches somehow, he isn't hitting, he isn't getting a lot of PT, at least be the "Enforcer" of the team. And Lou Marson loves to yell at opponents, so I just assumed that he would get a fist thrown his way at some point. Luckily for us, Josh Tomlin was in the bullpen that game, because we had to skip his start, so we did have somebody to eat a few innings. Now to the actual game...
In this game the offense looked really good. We had one big inning that we scored 5 runs, but we also were able to score in other innings too, so this is the best game thus far for our offense. Our gamely HRs were hit by Grimmace and Kipnis. More importantly we had 7 extra-base hits, and went 5-12 with RISP. Kipnis came off the bench to replace Hanahan, and he proceeded to go 2-3 with 2 RBIs which was a good boost. Choo even got the last laugh by hitting the go ahead 2 run double in the 10th inning to deep left center.
Pitching left a little to be desired, but since this was Sandy Alomar's first game calling the shots with Acta ejected early, you got a sense of what type of manager he is. He is definitely a match-up guy, and he emptied out the bullpen using everyone except for Dan Wheeler. Pestano blew the hold in the 8th inning, which allowed Asencio to get his first win with the Tribe, and Chris Perez made quick and easy work of the Royals 4-6 hitters in the 10th for his second save. The bullpen didn't really hold much of anything as Tomlin got roughed up, and so did most of the guys who really you could tell were trying to just hold on for dear life. Fortunately one swing by Choo in the 10th completely reversed the momentum, because following a 4 run 5th inning, we were up 9-2 and then just held on until we ended up winning 11-9 in 10.
We finally got an extra inning win, and having clinched our first series win of the season it was onto Sunday, and the return of Ubaldo Jimenez from suspension....
Game 3 Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Luis Mendoza
Yes the Royals have a starter named Luis Mendoza, I am sure he can skate really fast...it's just that he has a problem stopping. The boxscore for the Tribe is below for this game since it somewhat sums up the improvements of EVERYBODY's numbers, except for the bullpen mafia. The Indians scored runs in 3 innings, but when you score 6, 4, and 3 runs in those innings, you are having a big day. The gamely homers in this game were by Grimmace, Kipnis(back-to-back for Grimmace/Kipnis), Duncan, and Pronk. Pronk's home run went to right field. Well, actually it is the first homerun to land in the bar beyond the right field bleachers, and the measurement by ESPN is 481ft, but during the game they said 454ft, but let's just agree that he was looking for a curve, got it, and then crushed it. Shelley Duncan's HR was just as clearly a no-doubter, but after Pronk hit his, like Larry Doby breaking the color barrier in the American League, it kind of gets overlooked. Everyone who got an AB in this game got a hit. Brantley, Hafner, and Grimmace led the way with 3 hits each. Santana got the game off, and Marson got his first hit of the season with a timely double that drove in a run. The Indians got runs off of every Royals pitcher, except for CF Mitch Maier who came in the 9th to pitch. Kind of embarrassing that we couldn't get a run off of him, or is it embarrassing that he was the only one that pitched that didn't allow a run? Tough call. The name of the game was 2 out hitting. The Indians scored 12 of their 13 runs with 2 outs. The only run not scored with 2 outs with the lead-off HR by Pronk in the 5th. What is even more impressive is that most of the time, the Indians started with nobody on base with 2 outs, making the manufacturing of runs all the more impressive.
Jimenez labored to say the least to get thru 5 innings. He threw 114 pitches and gave up 4 runs. Not ideal, but it was good enough for a win. The issue with Jimenez all season will be his command, he was clearly not as in control as he was in his first start, but he still got thru 5 innings, and if maybe 35% of his starts he is wild, getting a win during one of them is a nice result. Hopefully he will get it back together the next time out. The bullpen took over, and really didn't have any problems and just got outs to clinch the sweep and give the Indians a 13-7 win.
So in conclusion, here are my final thoughts on the series. Shelley Duncan is still taking leaks in LF, and has solidified himself as the starting LF barring injury or going 0-40. He has timely hitting, raw power, and is starting to get respect from managers as the Royals attempted some serious defensive shifting during his at-bats. Choo still owns the Royals, as I think he had 6 RBIs during this series alone, and Brantley had about 6 hits during the series which isn't too shabby at all. A-Cab looked good both offensively and defensively, and I am feeling really comfortable about his offense this year as he appears locked in. In three games the Indians not only hit the ball a lot, but they drew 16 walks in the process. Shelly Duncan has an OBP of .485 and Santana is at a lowly .417 OBP. Defensively the best play was seeing Santana throw out Jarrod Dyson attempting to steal on Saturday. This guy was a call-up from AAA who really made some mistakes in CF the first two games that gave the Indians a lot of runs, but he did have like 7 SBs in AAA before the call-up. So when he ran, and Santana gunned him out I was impressed, especially since we were tied at the time, and Santana needs to get some of these speedsters out that way his arm gets the respect that Marson does. That will take a lot of the pressure off our pitchers and defense.
The pitching left a bit to be desired, but they were all strange games. Lowe looked the best all weekend, and the bullpen really only labored thru Saturday's game. Not worried about the bullpen at all, and while Ascencio is giving up some runs, he is still new to the majors, and he looks like a very solid right-hander from our pen while he is up here. He was a closer in the Braves system, so if we can stop using him 2-3 innings at a time and get him down to 1.0 innings during outings, I think he will settle down and complement our team nicely.
You can never undervalue division wins, and sweeping the Royals is a great way to make up for the series loss to the White Sox. The Royals clearly missed Melky Cabrera and Wilson Betemit destroying us like they did last season. However Mike Moustakis had a great series defensively and offensively. I don't think anybody on their team impressed me more than him, that guy looks like he could be a gold glove caliber player at 3rd, and his bat finds a lot of gaps. Billy Butler is still a very underrated DH, and a doubles machine. Put him in a big market, and that guy would get the same respect a David Ortiz or Paul Konerko get.
Indians have an off day on Monday that will help rest the bullpen, but hopefully doesn't cool down the offense. We are going to Seattle to face the Mariners, and first up will be Masterson vs. Millwood at 10:05. Looks like we will have Johnny Damon signed by then, so expect him to join the Clippers later this week, who by the way are 8-2 I believe and just rolling as expected.
Greybeard out...
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 6 1 3 2 0 0 19 .206 .289 .353
A Cabrera SS 5 1 1 0 1 1 22 .282 .333 .513
S Choo RF 5 1 1 2 0 1 20 .219 .390 .281
A Cunningham RF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .111 .200 .111
T Hafner DH 4 2 3 1 1 1 16 .292 .393 .583
S Duncan LF 2 3 1 3 3 0 29 .320 .485 .600
C Kotchman 1B 4 3 3 2 1 0 22 .219 .286 .406
J Kipnis 2B 4 1 1 1 1 1 28 .188 .257 .531
J Hannahan 3B 5 0 1 1 0 1 10 .280 .357 .400
L Marson C 5 1 1 1 0 1 19 .125 .125 .250
Totals 40 13 15 13 7 6 185
BATTING
2B: S Choo (2, L Mendoza); L Marson (1, J Mijares); M Brantley (3, J Mijares)
HR: S Duncan (2, 3rd inning off L Mendoza 2 on, 2 Out); T Hafner (2, 5th inning off L Mendoza 0 on, 0 Out); C Kotchman (2, 8th inning off L Coleman 1 on, 2 Out); J Kipnis (3, 8th inning off L Coleman 0 on, 2 Out)
RBI: S Choo 2 (6), S Duncan 3 (6), J Hannahan (6), T Hafner (5), L Marson (1), M Brantley 2 (3), C Kotchman 2 (4), J Kipnis (7)
2-out RBI: S Choo 2, S Duncan 3, J Hannahan, L Marson, M Brantley 2, C Kotchman 2, J Kipnis
GIDP: S Duncan, A Cabrera
Indians RISP: 5-12 (M Brantley 1-1, S Choo 1-2, L Marson 1-2, J Hannahan 1-3, S Duncan 1-1, J Kipnis 0-2, C Kotchman 0-1)
Team LOB: 7
BASERUNNING
SB: C Kotchman (2, 2nd base off L Mendoza/B Pena)
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
U Jimenez
(W, 1-0) 5.0 9 4 4 3 5 0 112-70 4.50
R Perez 0.2 1 1 1 1 0 0 14-7 7.36
D Wheeler 1.1 0 0 0 0 0 0 12-9 8.10
T Sipp 1.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8-4 13.50
J Asencio 1.0 3 2 2 0 2 0 29-17 5.63
Totals 9.0 13 7 7 4 7 0 175-107
PITCHING
WP: U Jimenez; J Asencio
Balk: R Perez
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: U Jimenez 16/27; R Perez 2/4; D Wheeler 2/4; T Sipp 2/3; J Asencio 2/6
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: U Jimenez 23-8-20-19; R Perez 2-1-1-3; D Wheeler 2-0-3-4; T Sipp 1-0-1-2; J Asencio 5-3-5-4
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: U Jimenez 7-3; R Perez 0-2; D Wheeler 2-2; T Sipp 1-2; J Asencio 0-1
Game Scores: U Jimenez 35
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Tribe/White Sox Series
Based on the hockey standings I believe we still have just 4 points.
Judging from the little bit that I know of hockey, I am guessing that 4
pts a week into the season isn't a great record. What makes it a little
more unbearable is that we dropped two straight to the White Sox. In
any sport the most important thing is to have a winning record in your
own division. We couldn't be the White Sox at all last season, and thus
far we are not off to a good start. I can accept that the Tigers would
give us problems, but if we can beat the Royals, Twins, and White Sox by
maybe a few more games than the Tigers, we could get an advantage on
them in that regard.
Anyways onto the series. The first game was on Monday night, and we
played basically our entire bench which was Aaron Cunningham, Jose
Lopez, Lou Marson, and Jason Donald. We didn't win that game, and we
didn't put up many runs at all. Jose Lopez and Jason Kipnis were the
stars of the offense, because they each hit a HR, but that was about it.
Josh Tomlin got rocked early by allowing 4 runs in the first inning,
however he calmed himself down to muster a decent outing if you ignore
that the first inning ever happened. He should be a #3 pitcher in most
rotations, but before he can solidify himself in the majors, he needs to
figure out how to prevent the long ball. Last season his ERA was only
high because of the solo HRs he allowed, and this season is starting
more of the same. Most guys don't square up to get consecutive hits off
of him, he doesn't walk many people, but when they get a hold of one of
his pitches they don't seem to land for a while. I don't know how you
prevent homeruns, but my guess is that with the movement of his stuff,
rather than be off a bit by throwing balls, he is off by hanging
pitches, which MLBers just seem to tee off on.
Game 2 was postponed due to snow.
Game 3 came and went with a 10-6 loss. The boxscore is below. The
positives are that we scored 6 runs, so the offense may be coming
around. I am going to be negative nancy and shatter that hope if you
think that 6 runs means the offense is coming around. Look real closely
at that boxscore. What do you see? I see exactly what I saw while
watching the game, Travis Hafner and Shelley Duncan had great games
offensively. The rest of the team did not. A-Cab does show that he got
two hits, but that double was because the White Sox miscommunicated on a
routine pop fly between the RF and 2B, and then he scored on a wild
pitch, hence why there are only 5 RBIs instead of 6. Oh, and all 5 RBIs
are from Hafner and Duncan. Pronk cranked his homer into the second
level which was awesome. First pitch of the inning, gone. Here is a
fun stat, with runners in scoring position or RISP if you will, the
Tribe went a blistering 1-11. Look who got At-Bats too, Brantley, Choo
(thrice), Santana (twice), A-Cab, Duncan, etc. All went 0-for with only
Pronk ripping a double down the line to score two. Pronk got to second,
so you know it was a solid hit. I still cringed as he was rounding
first, bad things happen when sliding into 2nd, and since he had two
hits we really can't lose him right now. Hanahan had some solid liners
for hits, and he is really swinging that bat well. Kotchman was our
other player with a hit, but that wasn't a rope or anything, it was a
blooper that magically fell, but it legitimately fell, not like A-Cabs
double.
Masterson is allowed to have an off day, we couldn't win when he allowed
1 run thru 8 innings, so having a bad start today isn't the end of the
world. Overall I am not worried about the pitching or the bullpen. It
was cold, wet, and both teams struggled getting a grip on the ball. I
am concerned about the offense. Let's run thru the boxscore one more
time. Our leadoff hitter has a .059avg and a .238 OBP. That's setting
the table. Our 2-4 hitters don't crack a .250 average, but I will say
that Choo and Santana are walking every chance they get as they both
have an OBP of .400. With 2 hits yesterday, Pronk is now one of our
team leaders in batting at .267avg. Shelley Duncan though had 3 hits,
so he is ahead of Pronk by ripping the ball at a .294 average, and
really from an OBP perspective our 3-6 hitters are getting on base a
lot. The lowest OBP for them is Hafner at .389. So what is going wrong
if they get on base a lot? Well then comes Casey Kotchman. Who's OBP
matches his average at .095. He just isn't very good offensively. He
doesn't strike out which is great, but he also doesn't walk or hit the
ball hard...ever. I guess I look at the risk/reward for the Indians if
this doesn't improve by mid-May. Canzler and LaPorta aren't as polished
defensively, but they aren't liabilities in the field, and can play
multiple positions, and they are both right handed. They may not hit
.350 and they will strike out, but I am willing to bet they can each hit
better than .095, get the ball out of the infield, and have power
potential. Kotchman, thus far hits it as far as some of my little
leaguers do, and even then I am not sure who actually hit the ball
harder. He has at least 12 outs that are slow tappers to the pitcher or
some other easy double play candidate. LaPorta/Canzler may not be
building blocks of this franchise, but they may surprise you if they
ever get the playing time to get some confidence, and really I am just
not impressed at all with Kotchman. He is my black sheep of this team.
And yes I am fully aware that right behind Kotchman is Jason Kipnis who
is also hitting .094, but at least he has drawn a few walks and has some
legitamite RBIs this season. Kipnis and a few other guys have hit the
ball hard, but it just hasn't found a gap. That is ok. The old saying
is that if you hit the ball hard, eventually they will fall, and most of
the team is starting to heat up in that department, Kotchman bothers me
because out of his 19 at-bats this season maybe 2 have been hard hits.
Our next game is Friday against the Royals, as it will be Luke Hochevar
vs. Derek Lowe. The Royals no longer have Wilson Betemit or Melky
Cabrera, so we should fair much better against them this season.
Go TRIBE
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 4 0 0 0 1 0 14 .059 .238 .118
A Cabrera SS 4 1 2 0 1 0 17 .217 .280 .391
S Choo RF 3 1 0 0 2 2 28 .167 .400 .167
C Santana C 3 1 0 0 2 2 25 .211 .400 .526
T Hafner DH 5 2 2 3 0 2 15 .267 .389 .533
S Duncan LF 5 1 3 2 0 0 25 .294 .400 .529
C Kotchman 1B 5 0 1 0 0 0 13 .095 .095 .095
J Kipnis 2B 4 0 0 0 0 2 19 .095 .174 .238
J Hannahan 3B 4 0 2 0 0 1 18 .313 .353 .500
Totals 37 6 10 5 6 9 174
BATTING
2B: A Cabrera (1, J Danks); T Hafner (1, J Danks)
HR: T Hafner (1, 4th inning off J Danks 0 on, 0 Out); S Duncan (1, 7th
inning off W Ohman 1 on, 1 Out)
RBI: T Hafner 3 (4), S Duncan 2 (2)
S: J Kipnis
Indians RISP: 1-11 (M Brantley 0-1, C Santana 0-2, S Choo 0-3, J
Hannahan 0-1, S Duncan 0-1, A Cabrera 0-1, T Hafner 1-1, C Kotchman 0-1)
Team LOB: 11
FIELDING
E: J Hannahan (2, throw); C Kotchman (1, catch)
DP: 1 (J Hannahan-J Kipnis-C Kotchman).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
J Masterson
(L, 0-1) 5.0 8 5 3 1 2 0 94-58 2.77
D Wheeler 0.1 2 3 3 1 0 1 22-10 13.50
R Perez 0.2 1 2 2 1 0 1 10-5 6.00
J Gomez 2.0 0 0 0 0 3 0 34-19 0.00
J Asencio 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 13-9 4.50
Totals 9.0 11 10 8 3 6 2 173-101
PITCHING
WP: J Masterson
IBB: P Konerko (By R Perez)
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: J Masterson 14/25; D Wheeler 1/4; R
Perez 2/4; J Gomez 4/6; J Asencio 1/3
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: J Masterson
12-6-18-22; D Wheeler 4-1-2-3; R Perez 1-1-0-3; J Gomez 6-5-5-3; J
Asencio 3-3-1-2
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: J Masterson 5-8; D Wheeler 1-0; R Perez 2-0; J
Gomez 3-0; J Asencio 1-1
Judging from the little bit that I know of hockey, I am guessing that 4
pts a week into the season isn't a great record. What makes it a little
more unbearable is that we dropped two straight to the White Sox. In
any sport the most important thing is to have a winning record in your
own division. We couldn't be the White Sox at all last season, and thus
far we are not off to a good start. I can accept that the Tigers would
give us problems, but if we can beat the Royals, Twins, and White Sox by
maybe a few more games than the Tigers, we could get an advantage on
them in that regard.
Anyways onto the series. The first game was on Monday night, and we
played basically our entire bench which was Aaron Cunningham, Jose
Lopez, Lou Marson, and Jason Donald. We didn't win that game, and we
didn't put up many runs at all. Jose Lopez and Jason Kipnis were the
stars of the offense, because they each hit a HR, but that was about it.
Josh Tomlin got rocked early by allowing 4 runs in the first inning,
however he calmed himself down to muster a decent outing if you ignore
that the first inning ever happened. He should be a #3 pitcher in most
rotations, but before he can solidify himself in the majors, he needs to
figure out how to prevent the long ball. Last season his ERA was only
high because of the solo HRs he allowed, and this season is starting
more of the same. Most guys don't square up to get consecutive hits off
of him, he doesn't walk many people, but when they get a hold of one of
his pitches they don't seem to land for a while. I don't know how you
prevent homeruns, but my guess is that with the movement of his stuff,
rather than be off a bit by throwing balls, he is off by hanging
pitches, which MLBers just seem to tee off on.
Game 2 was postponed due to snow.
Game 3 came and went with a 10-6 loss. The boxscore is below. The
positives are that we scored 6 runs, so the offense may be coming
around. I am going to be negative nancy and shatter that hope if you
think that 6 runs means the offense is coming around. Look real closely
at that boxscore. What do you see? I see exactly what I saw while
watching the game, Travis Hafner and Shelley Duncan had great games
offensively. The rest of the team did not. A-Cab does show that he got
two hits, but that double was because the White Sox miscommunicated on a
routine pop fly between the RF and 2B, and then he scored on a wild
pitch, hence why there are only 5 RBIs instead of 6. Oh, and all 5 RBIs
are from Hafner and Duncan. Pronk cranked his homer into the second
level which was awesome. First pitch of the inning, gone. Here is a
fun stat, with runners in scoring position or RISP if you will, the
Tribe went a blistering 1-11. Look who got At-Bats too, Brantley, Choo
(thrice), Santana (twice), A-Cab, Duncan, etc. All went 0-for with only
Pronk ripping a double down the line to score two. Pronk got to second,
so you know it was a solid hit. I still cringed as he was rounding
first, bad things happen when sliding into 2nd, and since he had two
hits we really can't lose him right now. Hanahan had some solid liners
for hits, and he is really swinging that bat well. Kotchman was our
other player with a hit, but that wasn't a rope or anything, it was a
blooper that magically fell, but it legitimately fell, not like A-Cabs
double.
Masterson is allowed to have an off day, we couldn't win when he allowed
1 run thru 8 innings, so having a bad start today isn't the end of the
world. Overall I am not worried about the pitching or the bullpen. It
was cold, wet, and both teams struggled getting a grip on the ball. I
am concerned about the offense. Let's run thru the boxscore one more
time. Our leadoff hitter has a .059avg and a .238 OBP. That's setting
the table. Our 2-4 hitters don't crack a .250 average, but I will say
that Choo and Santana are walking every chance they get as they both
have an OBP of .400. With 2 hits yesterday, Pronk is now one of our
team leaders in batting at .267avg. Shelley Duncan though had 3 hits,
so he is ahead of Pronk by ripping the ball at a .294 average, and
really from an OBP perspective our 3-6 hitters are getting on base a
lot. The lowest OBP for them is Hafner at .389. So what is going wrong
if they get on base a lot? Well then comes Casey Kotchman. Who's OBP
matches his average at .095. He just isn't very good offensively. He
doesn't strike out which is great, but he also doesn't walk or hit the
ball hard...ever. I guess I look at the risk/reward for the Indians if
this doesn't improve by mid-May. Canzler and LaPorta aren't as polished
defensively, but they aren't liabilities in the field, and can play
multiple positions, and they are both right handed. They may not hit
.350 and they will strike out, but I am willing to bet they can each hit
better than .095, get the ball out of the infield, and have power
potential. Kotchman, thus far hits it as far as some of my little
leaguers do, and even then I am not sure who actually hit the ball
harder. He has at least 12 outs that are slow tappers to the pitcher or
some other easy double play candidate. LaPorta/Canzler may not be
building blocks of this franchise, but they may surprise you if they
ever get the playing time to get some confidence, and really I am just
not impressed at all with Kotchman. He is my black sheep of this team.
And yes I am fully aware that right behind Kotchman is Jason Kipnis who
is also hitting .094, but at least he has drawn a few walks and has some
legitamite RBIs this season. Kipnis and a few other guys have hit the
ball hard, but it just hasn't found a gap. That is ok. The old saying
is that if you hit the ball hard, eventually they will fall, and most of
the team is starting to heat up in that department, Kotchman bothers me
because out of his 19 at-bats this season maybe 2 have been hard hits.
Our next game is Friday against the Royals, as it will be Luke Hochevar
vs. Derek Lowe. The Royals no longer have Wilson Betemit or Melky
Cabrera, so we should fair much better against them this season.
Go TRIBE
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
M Brantley CF 4 0 0 0 1 0 14 .059 .238 .118
A Cabrera SS 4 1 2 0 1 0 17 .217 .280 .391
S Choo RF 3 1 0 0 2 2 28 .167 .400 .167
C Santana C 3 1 0 0 2 2 25 .211 .400 .526
T Hafner DH 5 2 2 3 0 2 15 .267 .389 .533
S Duncan LF 5 1 3 2 0 0 25 .294 .400 .529
C Kotchman 1B 5 0 1 0 0 0 13 .095 .095 .095
J Kipnis 2B 4 0 0 0 0 2 19 .095 .174 .238
J Hannahan 3B 4 0 2 0 0 1 18 .313 .353 .500
Totals 37 6 10 5 6 9 174
BATTING
2B: A Cabrera (1, J Danks); T Hafner (1, J Danks)
HR: T Hafner (1, 4th inning off J Danks 0 on, 0 Out); S Duncan (1, 7th
inning off W Ohman 1 on, 1 Out)
RBI: T Hafner 3 (4), S Duncan 2 (2)
S: J Kipnis
Indians RISP: 1-11 (M Brantley 0-1, C Santana 0-2, S Choo 0-3, J
Hannahan 0-1, S Duncan 0-1, A Cabrera 0-1, T Hafner 1-1, C Kotchman 0-1)
Team LOB: 11
FIELDING
E: J Hannahan (2, throw); C Kotchman (1, catch)
DP: 1 (J Hannahan-J Kipnis-C Kotchman).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
J Masterson
(L, 0-1) 5.0 8 5 3 1 2 0 94-58 2.77
D Wheeler 0.1 2 3 3 1 0 1 22-10 13.50
R Perez 0.2 1 2 2 1 0 1 10-5 6.00
J Gomez 2.0 0 0 0 0 3 0 34-19 0.00
J Asencio 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 13-9 4.50
Totals 9.0 11 10 8 3 6 2 173-101
PITCHING
WP: J Masterson
IBB: P Konerko (By R Perez)
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: J Masterson 14/25; D Wheeler 1/4; R
Perez 2/4; J Gomez 4/6; J Asencio 1/3
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: J Masterson
12-6-18-22; D Wheeler 4-1-2-3; R Perez 1-1-0-3; J Gomez 6-5-5-3; J
Asencio 3-3-1-2
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: J Masterson 5-8; D Wheeler 1-0; R Perez 2-0; J
Gomez 3-0; J Asencio 1-1
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Indians Series Conclusion (1-2)
So the opening series against the Toronto Blue Jays came and left with the Tribe losing the series 1-2. The Indians won game three behind a memorable birthday performance from Carlos Santana who belted two no doubt homers on Sunday. It was nice to see the power from Santana who like most of the offense, has been very slow to get hits out of the box. Santana is probably the most impressive position player I saw from the first three games. His eye at the plate is right where he left it at the end of last season, the power is still around, and defensively he has called great games at the plate as evident from the results of Masterson, Jimenez, and Lowe. He did have an opportunity to throw out a baserunner, but couldn't get the job done on that. However, when you figure that games 1 and 2 he had to catch 16 and 12 innings respectively, to come back out for the early game on Sunday, and then lead the run scoring from the offense is all the more impressive. The Indians locked him up thru 2016 on Tuesday, and I could not be more thrilled. Not many teams have a catcher that can produce as much offense as Santana can, and once his defense comes full circle I believe that we will have an elite talent on our roster.
The other big positive was the starting pitching. You couldn't ask for better performances from the three starters Masterson, Jimenez, and Lowe. All went deep into their games, and the most they allowed was 3 runs, which twice put us in a position to be ahead when they left, and we were tied during the other game when the starter left. The problem I have with the series was that we didn't win the series with 3 quality starts. As evident by how important every game can be(as evident by the playoff race last year), we need to capitalize on those types of starts if we want to get into the next level which would be the playoffs. We aren't a good enough team to assume that we will "make up for those" at a later date. Until we make the playoffs, we need to be scratching and clawing for every win until we can prove that we legitimately are a playoff team.
The offense is an issue after the first weekend of games. However its not a HUGE issue, as there will be improvements during the ebb and flows of the season. There will be a few more series that we will struggle offensively, however hopefully our starters use some of their bad starts then too, so that we don't waste quality starts anymore. Casey Kotchman I think will hit a lot better, but thru the first series he definitely impressed me the least amongst all the hitters. It wasn't until game 3 that he hit it into the outfield, he went 1 for 13, and for the most part hit at least 10 slow tappers back to the pitcher. Those were easy double plays at times that killed rallies. I am a very patient person, and his defense is definitely a run saver, however if he is going to be hitting in the 6th spot, he needs to produce a bit more, or else why not move Hanahan up who at least supplies some pop?
Defensively I was surprised by the play of Shelley Duncan who actually showed some range and made some good catches. One thing that might get taken for granted is the defensive presence of Shin Soo Choo. Seriously, how many times did a Blue Jay round second, look back at Choo fielding the ball, and then throw on the brakes? That must have happened at least 7 times, his arm is a cannon and a difference maker on defense. I am not bashing Fukodome, but his arm strength didn't get the respect of Choo's.
We got the White Sox update up next. Game 1 against the White Sox is already in the books, and the second game was postponed due to snow. Updates soon to follow.
The other big positive was the starting pitching. You couldn't ask for better performances from the three starters Masterson, Jimenez, and Lowe. All went deep into their games, and the most they allowed was 3 runs, which twice put us in a position to be ahead when they left, and we were tied during the other game when the starter left. The problem I have with the series was that we didn't win the series with 3 quality starts. As evident by how important every game can be(as evident by the playoff race last year), we need to capitalize on those types of starts if we want to get into the next level which would be the playoffs. We aren't a good enough team to assume that we will "make up for those" at a later date. Until we make the playoffs, we need to be scratching and clawing for every win until we can prove that we legitimately are a playoff team.
The offense is an issue after the first weekend of games. However its not a HUGE issue, as there will be improvements during the ebb and flows of the season. There will be a few more series that we will struggle offensively, however hopefully our starters use some of their bad starts then too, so that we don't waste quality starts anymore. Casey Kotchman I think will hit a lot better, but thru the first series he definitely impressed me the least amongst all the hitters. It wasn't until game 3 that he hit it into the outfield, he went 1 for 13, and for the most part hit at least 10 slow tappers back to the pitcher. Those were easy double plays at times that killed rallies. I am a very patient person, and his defense is definitely a run saver, however if he is going to be hitting in the 6th spot, he needs to produce a bit more, or else why not move Hanahan up who at least supplies some pop?
Defensively I was surprised by the play of Shelley Duncan who actually showed some range and made some good catches. One thing that might get taken for granted is the defensive presence of Shin Soo Choo. Seriously, how many times did a Blue Jay round second, look back at Choo fielding the ball, and then throw on the brakes? That must have happened at least 7 times, his arm is a cannon and a difference maker on defense. I am not bashing Fukodome, but his arm strength didn't get the respect of Choo's.
We got the White Sox update up next. Game 1 against the White Sox is already in the books, and the second game was postponed due to snow. Updates soon to follow.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Poor Offensive Opening Day
The 4 runs posted by the Indians would have been enough to win in any of the other games played today except for the Reds who won 4-0 over the Marlins. This is an odd opening day, as the Indians/Blue Jays combined to score 11 runs, which as of right now is 6 more runs than the next closest game. Honestly I don't think the Indians were alone in leaving the lumber in Arizona. Maybe both teams got enough at-bats today that we can get to a more normal regular season hitting duel. The one thing about the Blue Jays is that they will post up runs in large amounts with the power they have in their lineup, the Indians can get a lot of runners on base and move them around, when we can hit the ball out of the infield. Looking forward to what Saturday brings.
Go Tribe
Go Tribe
Game 1: Masterson vs. Romero(Toronto)
Well the Indians have made vast improvements from where they started off at this point last season. A year ago we opened against the White Sox and were trailing 12-0 before you could get back from the concession stands. This year things started off a lot better, and the Indians led 4-1 for most of the game. However a blown save by Chris Perez in the 9th blew yet another great start for Justin Masterson and the Indians fell to the Blue Jays 7-4 in 16 innings. A record was set, as this was the longest game on Opening Day in the history of major league baseball. Now to the the notes.
What Impressed Me about the Indians;
Justin Masterson: 8IP, 2 hits allowed, and 10Ks. That's a pretty nice stat line to start the year off, and usually deserves a W. Every time I talk about Masterson it comes down to the same few things, first he has Cy Young stuff, and can easily be a 20 game winner. However, the Indians hitters treat his starts the same way they did those of Sabathia and Cliff Lee not too long ago. Yes he left the game with a 4-1 lead, but all of the runs were scored in the 2nd inning, which is cool, but there are 8 other innings that the offense needs to show up. The one run he allowed was to Jose Bautista cranking a solo HR, which he will do against everyone so that wasn't a big issue. Great debut by Masterson, except in the AL he can't help his hitters out.
Jack Hanahan: Hanahan hit the big 3 run HR in the second inning that basically accounted for the entire offense. He also had a clutch hit in the 12th where he flung his bat at an off-speed pitch to make sure he hit it to the right side of the field, allowing Kipnis to move from 1st to 3rd with one out. Hanahan is a monster on opening days, so I suppose he is just following his own status quo, but he played very solid defense as usual, and was the only guy I can think of with multiple hits today.
Shin-Soo Choo: Choo looked really good in his debut. He was very aggressive on the basepaths being thrown out at home, and thrown out trying to steal second. However I like the aggression, at least it shows that he had a pulse and was trying to provide a spark to the bats as most of the hitters seemed fairly content to work the counts for walks for most of the games. Choo even walked towards the mound in the 15th when the Toronto reliever threw at his head. I liked that too, he knows it was probably unintentional, but again he showed a pulse for the offense. I don't think Choo will have as slow as a start to the year as he did last season, he seemed refreshed, very loose, and even had a good single to start off the year.
Bullpen: Other than Chris Perez, the rest of the pen looked pretty solid. The remainder of the unit went 6.2 IP with only allowing 3 runs. I think both teams were stretching the outings a lot longer than they would have liked as to avoid going to the 5th starter, but overall Pestano, Smith, Sipp, and Ascencio impressed me. Ascencio won't be asked to go 3 innings every time he throws, but he looked pretty calm and dependable in his Indians debut.
Eric Thames Facial Hair: What's not to like about that?
What I didn't like:
Chris Perez: Very rough way to start the year as he blew a 3 run lead in the 9th, which ultimately turned into a loss. He won't be perfect as far as save opportunities go on the year, so this one may not be a big one to let get away, but after the way Masterson shut down those bats all game, you really think he is beating himself up after the game for blowing it. He will be fine, and like any missed opportunities he will use this to help keep him focused and throwing confidently in future save opportunities.
The Offense: Once the extra innings started I couldn't help but feel bad for Manny Acta. What more is a manager to do when you have the go ahead runner on 3rd with one out, and then you hit into a double play...twice. I mean, Acta went by a very good playbook that he used last season, pinch running for Duncan and Hafner at different times, he had Kotchman and A-Cab up during those separate game winning situations, and all he could do was sit back and watch the team shoot itself in the foot. I didn't think the offense would be as huge a concern this year if the key players could stay healthy. In the end it is only one game, so lets see what they do on Saturday to redeem themselves. However, I wasn't impressed today. Regardless of the runs scored, they just weren't hitting the ball very solid all game. Weak grounders, choppers, and pop outs were the basic results of most of the at-bats. I don't mind seeing some hard line drive outs, or hard grounders just get hit in the wrong spots, at least that tells me the hitters are seeing the ball well, I didn't get that feeling after watching this game.
Colby Rasmus: We would have won if he didn't make a diving stop in CF on a Hanahan line drive. That could have blown the doors off the game, but instead it was an out and likely Web Gem.
Conclusion: The story here is that the Tribe wasted a great start by one of their starting pitchers. You aren't going to get a starter to go 8IP and allowing only 1 run very often, so you have to win those games. They couldn't, and what makes things worse is that by playing the odds, and trying to squeeze out one or two more runs late in the game by using pinch runners, Acta essentially took out two of the more powerful bats (Hafner and Duncan) in our lineup for the entire extra innings. Had they been in the lineup, I actually believe we would have won since their presence is a little bit more threatening than Jason Donald and Aaron Cunningham. I don't mind the pinch running moves by Acta, but I remember watching him sub Cunningham in for Duncan, and I thought, "Why not wait until Duncan can make it to 2nd before pinch running?". Well Acta sent the pinch runner in while Duncan was on first, and the next AB was an easy double play ball, so the pinch runner didn't matter. It was nice to see Cunningham play, but while he seems solid defensively, offensively we needed Duncan in those extra frames. It may take a few games to get the bats going, but somebody needs to get hot, and while Hanahan was the hot hand today, he was in the 9 spot so he was up the least amount of times. Carlos Santana called a very good game from behind the plate today, and the only damage done by the Blue Jays was on two hanging sliders that got crushed over the left field wall.
Next up is Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Brandon Morrow. Morrow is a right hander so that SHOULD favor us with our 6 lefty lineup. however we hit much better against the lefties of the Blue Jays today than we did against their righties. Jimenez will need to throw strikes and with our bullpen having been used a lot today, he will have to go at least 6 innings to set us up for a nice closing of that game. Ideally I am hoping he can throw strikes, he gets to go 6-7 innings, and then you will see Dan Wheeler and Rafael Perez first out of the pen, before Chris Perez redeems himself. Also, Brandon Morrow can throw over 100mph, so I am feeling a couple homers if any of the Indians can square the bat on one.
That's all for now. Good night and Go Tribe!
What Impressed Me about the Indians;
Justin Masterson: 8IP, 2 hits allowed, and 10Ks. That's a pretty nice stat line to start the year off, and usually deserves a W. Every time I talk about Masterson it comes down to the same few things, first he has Cy Young stuff, and can easily be a 20 game winner. However, the Indians hitters treat his starts the same way they did those of Sabathia and Cliff Lee not too long ago. Yes he left the game with a 4-1 lead, but all of the runs were scored in the 2nd inning, which is cool, but there are 8 other innings that the offense needs to show up. The one run he allowed was to Jose Bautista cranking a solo HR, which he will do against everyone so that wasn't a big issue. Great debut by Masterson, except in the AL he can't help his hitters out.
Jack Hanahan: Hanahan hit the big 3 run HR in the second inning that basically accounted for the entire offense. He also had a clutch hit in the 12th where he flung his bat at an off-speed pitch to make sure he hit it to the right side of the field, allowing Kipnis to move from 1st to 3rd with one out. Hanahan is a monster on opening days, so I suppose he is just following his own status quo, but he played very solid defense as usual, and was the only guy I can think of with multiple hits today.
Shin-Soo Choo: Choo looked really good in his debut. He was very aggressive on the basepaths being thrown out at home, and thrown out trying to steal second. However I like the aggression, at least it shows that he had a pulse and was trying to provide a spark to the bats as most of the hitters seemed fairly content to work the counts for walks for most of the games. Choo even walked towards the mound in the 15th when the Toronto reliever threw at his head. I liked that too, he knows it was probably unintentional, but again he showed a pulse for the offense. I don't think Choo will have as slow as a start to the year as he did last season, he seemed refreshed, very loose, and even had a good single to start off the year.
Bullpen: Other than Chris Perez, the rest of the pen looked pretty solid. The remainder of the unit went 6.2 IP with only allowing 3 runs. I think both teams were stretching the outings a lot longer than they would have liked as to avoid going to the 5th starter, but overall Pestano, Smith, Sipp, and Ascencio impressed me. Ascencio won't be asked to go 3 innings every time he throws, but he looked pretty calm and dependable in his Indians debut.
Eric Thames Facial Hair: What's not to like about that?
What I didn't like:
Chris Perez: Very rough way to start the year as he blew a 3 run lead in the 9th, which ultimately turned into a loss. He won't be perfect as far as save opportunities go on the year, so this one may not be a big one to let get away, but after the way Masterson shut down those bats all game, you really think he is beating himself up after the game for blowing it. He will be fine, and like any missed opportunities he will use this to help keep him focused and throwing confidently in future save opportunities.
The Offense: Once the extra innings started I couldn't help but feel bad for Manny Acta. What more is a manager to do when you have the go ahead runner on 3rd with one out, and then you hit into a double play...twice. I mean, Acta went by a very good playbook that he used last season, pinch running for Duncan and Hafner at different times, he had Kotchman and A-Cab up during those separate game winning situations, and all he could do was sit back and watch the team shoot itself in the foot. I didn't think the offense would be as huge a concern this year if the key players could stay healthy. In the end it is only one game, so lets see what they do on Saturday to redeem themselves. However, I wasn't impressed today. Regardless of the runs scored, they just weren't hitting the ball very solid all game. Weak grounders, choppers, and pop outs were the basic results of most of the at-bats. I don't mind seeing some hard line drive outs, or hard grounders just get hit in the wrong spots, at least that tells me the hitters are seeing the ball well, I didn't get that feeling after watching this game.
Colby Rasmus: We would have won if he didn't make a diving stop in CF on a Hanahan line drive. That could have blown the doors off the game, but instead it was an out and likely Web Gem.
Conclusion: The story here is that the Tribe wasted a great start by one of their starting pitchers. You aren't going to get a starter to go 8IP and allowing only 1 run very often, so you have to win those games. They couldn't, and what makes things worse is that by playing the odds, and trying to squeeze out one or two more runs late in the game by using pinch runners, Acta essentially took out two of the more powerful bats (Hafner and Duncan) in our lineup for the entire extra innings. Had they been in the lineup, I actually believe we would have won since their presence is a little bit more threatening than Jason Donald and Aaron Cunningham. I don't mind the pinch running moves by Acta, but I remember watching him sub Cunningham in for Duncan, and I thought, "Why not wait until Duncan can make it to 2nd before pinch running?". Well Acta sent the pinch runner in while Duncan was on first, and the next AB was an easy double play ball, so the pinch runner didn't matter. It was nice to see Cunningham play, but while he seems solid defensively, offensively we needed Duncan in those extra frames. It may take a few games to get the bats going, but somebody needs to get hot, and while Hanahan was the hot hand today, he was in the 9 spot so he was up the least amount of times. Carlos Santana called a very good game from behind the plate today, and the only damage done by the Blue Jays was on two hanging sliders that got crushed over the left field wall.
Next up is Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Brandon Morrow. Morrow is a right hander so that SHOULD favor us with our 6 lefty lineup. however we hit much better against the lefties of the Blue Jays today than we did against their righties. Jimenez will need to throw strikes and with our bullpen having been used a lot today, he will have to go at least 6 innings to set us up for a nice closing of that game. Ideally I am hoping he can throw strikes, he gets to go 6-7 innings, and then you will see Dan Wheeler and Rafael Perez first out of the pen, before Chris Perez redeems himself. Also, Brandon Morrow can throw over 100mph, so I am feeling a couple homers if any of the Indians can square the bat on one.
That's all for now. Good night and Go Tribe!
Keys to the Season
We have finally made it to Opening Day!!! Rather than give a breakdown of where I project the Tribe to finish, I would rather spend this post explaining the things that need to go right for the Tribe to make the playoffs. In baseball, you can't always control the teams around you, you need to win the games you are supposed to win, focus on winning series, and keep your own team improving. Yes the Tigers adding Prince Fielder is a big deal on the division, but if the Tribe can't get out of their own way, does it really matter?
Health I can not stress this enough. Last season you could have called the team the Cleveland Clippers and nobody would have batted an eye when looking at who was on that September roster. The Tribe made several moves to add to the depth at every position by signing MLB veterans such as Andy LaRoche, Jose Lopez, Fred Lewis, etc. This will help the team when the injuries start to occur, but even with that improved depth, Jose Lopez is not Asdrubal Cabrera, so we really need to stay healthy. You saw last year how being oft-injured can effect the production of even the best players. Shin Soo Choo being the best example, he finally started to get the bat going, and then got hurt in interleague play, and when he came back he needed several games to find his rhythm again. Bottom line, look at the playoff teams, they aren't scattered with key injuries up and down their roster. Its a 162 game season, and you need your best players to keep up during it.
Bullpen Mafia - the bullpen has to continue to be a strong workhorse. The bullpen was one of the best pieces of this team all year last season. We can't have a drop-off in production, or start blowing saves like we did prior to the arrival of Chris Perez. One of the things that assisted the bullpen last year was the starting pitching did a great job going deep into games, and rarely needed extended bullpen help for consecutive games. We got the starters to do that, and the bullpen is largely consisted of the same pieces of last season, so to expect them to duplicate their 2011 numbers isn't out of the realm of possibility.
Stay in the Hunt thru the All-Star Break - The Indians need to stay within striking distance by the All-Star break. Why? Well that should be the time the reinforcements arrive in Roberto Heredia and Grady Sizemore. Those would be two difference makers for contending teams if they were trade acquisitions, but for the Tribe they will be making their debuts. If the Tribe are close, adding a Cy Young runner-up and a former 3-time All-Star will give the team a huge momentum boost for the final stretch. I don't think Sizemore can play a full season anymore, however this season, the Tribe only needs him for half the season, and I think he can do that. You saw the talent last year when he was in the lineup, and you know Heredia can be a solid pitcher in any rotation when he is throwing strikes. The Indians can use their situations as an advantage to the season if they remain in contention come July.
The season starts today at 3:05 at Progressive Field. Justin Masterson vs. Ricky Romero.
Go Tribe!
Health I can not stress this enough. Last season you could have called the team the Cleveland Clippers and nobody would have batted an eye when looking at who was on that September roster. The Tribe made several moves to add to the depth at every position by signing MLB veterans such as Andy LaRoche, Jose Lopez, Fred Lewis, etc. This will help the team when the injuries start to occur, but even with that improved depth, Jose Lopez is not Asdrubal Cabrera, so we really need to stay healthy. You saw last year how being oft-injured can effect the production of even the best players. Shin Soo Choo being the best example, he finally started to get the bat going, and then got hurt in interleague play, and when he came back he needed several games to find his rhythm again. Bottom line, look at the playoff teams, they aren't scattered with key injuries up and down their roster. Its a 162 game season, and you need your best players to keep up during it.
Bullpen Mafia - the bullpen has to continue to be a strong workhorse. The bullpen was one of the best pieces of this team all year last season. We can't have a drop-off in production, or start blowing saves like we did prior to the arrival of Chris Perez. One of the things that assisted the bullpen last year was the starting pitching did a great job going deep into games, and rarely needed extended bullpen help for consecutive games. We got the starters to do that, and the bullpen is largely consisted of the same pieces of last season, so to expect them to duplicate their 2011 numbers isn't out of the realm of possibility.
Stay in the Hunt thru the All-Star Break - The Indians need to stay within striking distance by the All-Star break. Why? Well that should be the time the reinforcements arrive in Roberto Heredia and Grady Sizemore. Those would be two difference makers for contending teams if they were trade acquisitions, but for the Tribe they will be making their debuts. If the Tribe are close, adding a Cy Young runner-up and a former 3-time All-Star will give the team a huge momentum boost for the final stretch. I don't think Sizemore can play a full season anymore, however this season, the Tribe only needs him for half the season, and I think he can do that. You saw the talent last year when he was in the lineup, and you know Heredia can be a solid pitcher in any rotation when he is throwing strikes. The Indians can use their situations as an advantage to the season if they remain in contention come July.
The season starts today at 3:05 at Progressive Field. Justin Masterson vs. Ricky Romero.
Go Tribe!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)