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
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