While We’re Waiting… LeBron’s Will, Trading Wood and Pryor’s Future
May 13, 2010Cleveland Browns Begin OTAs on Monday: Without Several Starters
May 13, 2010Fausto Carmona got the win for his five innings of work. He came back after an hour and 10 minute delay and pitched well and long enough to qualify for the win. He pitched out of trouble in the 1st, when the first two hitters reached and were sacrificed to second and third. He pitched out of trouble again in the fourth, when again the first two batters reached and were sacrificed over. In the seventh, Laffey and Perez combined to pitch out of a jam. Perez threw serious gas to get the last out of the inning, climbing the ladder on Jose Guillen for the strikeout. Tony Sipp finished off the ninth.
For the Tribe it seems that Bruce Drennan’s swing impersonation last week did the job as Russell Branyan connected for his third home run in the last two games (427 feet at that). A twitter account (@metaphorsbwithu) had the Tribe tweet of the night with this bizarre stat- when Branyan puts the bat on the ball (meaning no strikeout) he is hitting .440. That’s amazing. Of course, he does have 18 strikeouts in 14 games. That would be a 208 strikeout pace for a full season. The rest of the offense was provided by Asdrubal Cabrera (who else?) with a two run double.
It was Cleveland’s first shut-out of the season. Let me rephrase that. It was the pitching staff’s first shut-out of the season. The only American League team without a shut-out? Yep. The Royals. Oh the irony. (Shout-out goes to Anthony Castrovince for that stat.) With the win the Indians move into third place in the Central Division. They move ahead of the Royals and White Sox. Incidentally, the Indians record outside of playing Kansas City and Chicago is 6-17.
The Indians go for the sweep tomorrow afternoon starting at 2:10. They will be attempting to tie their season high win streak of four games, and get only the second sweep of the season. Friday they open a three game series in Baltimore.
7 Comments
I love how he’s hitting .440 when not striking out. That is unbelievable.
“I love how he’s hitting .440 when not striking out. That is unbelievable.”
Which means that as bad as things have been, they could get worse. There’s no way that a BABIP of .391 is sustainable. So unless he increases his contact rate, he could be in trouble. FWIW, his K rate is right in line with his career average…
Scott… I always know things can get worse. We’re Cleveland fans.
And you’re right, there’s very little chance it keeps up.
I just want this team to be watchable. That means stay close in games and win every now and then. At least against the Royals I know I can watch w/o too much pain.
Hitters have far more control over their respective BAPIPs; it’s pitchers who all end up regressing to the norm. For example, Joe Mauer has a career BAPIP of .345 while David Ortiz is at .299. The reasons are many (some players hit the ball harder than others, some don’t hit HR, etc.), but hitter BAPIP is a repeatable skill, while pitching BAPIP isn’t.
That said, Branyan’s career BAPIP is .300, so Scott’s right; it’s going to come down.
I like today’s use of the winking/squinting Branyan image.
Also interesting (via Lets Go Tribe) is that Branyan’s HRs appear to come in bunches. Seven times last season, Rusty hit HRs in back-to-back games; often times with a three-in-four game stretch. Weird.
3rd place never tasted so sweet.
and we’ve earned it too. we’ve beaten up the white sox and royals proving we belong right in the middle of the AL Central.