You want to know if you should panic or not. I can’t say unequivocally yes or no. The truth is the Indians aren’t as good as what you saw during the first month and a half and they are not as bad as they have been during the past three weeks. They are somewhere in between. Which way they go will be the difference in contention or being just another good early season story that will be forgotten by the rest of Major League Baseball.
After losing their sixth straight at home and fourth straight overall to the Texas Rangers, the Indians continued their downward spiral. They were swept in their home ballpark by a team that looked better than they did in all facets of the game. All of their warts were exposed during this four game sweep. There is still so much baseball to be played, but the once huge AL Central lead has been whittled down to two and a half games over the Detroit Tigers, who the Indians will be facing at Comerica Park in eight days. The eight game lead vanished with the Tribe’s recent nine of 12 loss stretch.
Winning cures all ails, but the Tribe needs some of their core players to step up their games or else second place could be here faster than we all think.
Shin-Soo Choo. If we are pointing a finger at someone as to why the offense has been sputtering so badly since Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore went to the DL, then Choo is your man. He is supposed to be this team’s best player. His slow start was bad enough, but they happen. Things then got magnified when he was arrested for DUI on May 2nd. Now we sit here on June 6th and Choo still has yet to come around.
He is hitting .239 with just five homers and 22 RBIs. He hasn’t homered since the end of April has driven in just three runs since May 16th. The numbers aren’t there and the clutch hitting has completely disappeared. His seventh inning strikeout with as the tying run yesterday was an illustration of this. Not only did he K, but it was another in the long line of bad at-bats.
Before the game, Choo finally admitted that he hasn’t been right mentally all year.
“Everybody sees it,” he said. “I’m trying too hard. That’s just my natural thought. Sometimes it helps and sometimes it makes it worse. It’s given me a lot of stress.”
Could the Scott Boras-led contract talks (or should we say lack their of after passing on long-term security with the Tribe this winter) also be in weighing heavily on his mind?
In a lineup that doesn’t have a lot of traditional power guys, the Indians just cannot afford to have their number three hitter under-performing this badly. Manny Acta has moved Choo down in the order to help ease his mind, but unless Choo finds himself, the Indians offense will continue to suffer.
And this brings us to Carlos Santana. Heading into the season, Choo hitting in front of the cleanup hitter Santana was supposed to be the driving force behind the revamped lineup. While Choo’s been the one who has been the real disappointment to the fans, a lot has been expected out of Santana during his first full season in the bigs. He has hit for power and average at every level. The key was always his patience at the plate. However, it seems as though he has become too patient. Nobody in the majors swings at less pitches than Santana. That’s not just an observation, that’s a statistical fact.
That’s all well and good if you are Albert Pujols, but Santana has become almost too reliant on the walk. He needs to be driving in more runs from the middle of the order. Instead he is been just average. That isn’t cutting it with the injuries to Hafner and Grady Sizemore. Yes, Grady is back, but he still is working on getting his timing back. Santana is hitting just .229 and has been moved back into the cleanup spot after a mini-heat up, mostly because Acta has little choice. The Travis Buck and Shelley Duncan experiments weren’t really working.
I give Acta credit though, he is trying everything he can to get this offense going. This weekend alone, he used three different lineups, none of which had any success. The last two games he moved Orlando Cabrera into the two hole and shifted his best hitter, Asdrubal Cabrera, to third. It didn’t really work. The OC experience that we all loved during April and half of May has come to a stretching halt here in June. He is hitting just .245 with a porous .271 OBP. He handles the bat well, but moving him up in the order paid zero dividends.
Rangers starter CJ Wilson was dissecting the Indians yesterday, but the one guy he couldn’t solve was Michael Brantley. Twice he led off innings by getting on base. Twice OC grounded into double plays, killing the threats.
Then there is the back hole at the bottom of the order. The 7-8-9 went 2-27 over the three games this weekend. Friday night’s culprits were Travis Buck, Matt LaPorta, and Adam Everett. Saturday’s were Austin Kearns, Lou Marson, and Everett, and yesterday was the deadly LaPorta, Kearns, and Everett trio Not exactly Baerga, Belle, and Murray.
It comes down to this simple fact – everyone not named Michael Brantley and Asdrubal Cabrera is slumping at the exact same time. The offense scored two runs over the last 27 innings and was shut out back to back days by tough lefties (the Indians have lost to the last five left-handed starters they have faced – but that’s another topic of conversation). So where do they go from here?
While Everett has been decent enough as the utility man, the Indians need to turn to the red-hot Cord Phelps who is tearing up AAA pitching. With so many holes in the lineup, something has to change. Acta has already tried by tinkering with the lineup. That hasn’t worked thus far. The bench options – Kearns and Everett in particular – are not coming through and don’t have upside. We are still two weeks away (at best) from Hafner’s return. Its time to see what Phelps can do.
The issue will be his defense if it indeed comes to that. Yesterday was just his second start at the third in Columbus. He did play there in the Arizona Fall League, but a below average defense could be become worse if he gets regulare ABs there. It could be worth it if Phelps comes up hitting and I would expect most of his ABs would come at Uncle Orlando’s expense.
Even with Hannahan day to day (Acta says he should be ready to play tonight), it has to be Phelps’s time to come up. He’s a switch hitter who could help with the issues against left-handed pitching.
I don’t want to make it sound like Phelps is the savior, because he’s not. The way to end the Tribe’s slump is through the guys that are supposed to be driving the offense. Choo and Santana have got to start pulling their weight they way we know they can. Without their contributions, we are asking way too much of not only the other guys in the lineup, but of the pitching staff as a whole.
Tonight the Indians welcome the Minnesota Twins to town for a three-game set. They turn to seven game winner Josh Tomlin to get them back on track. He faces righty Scott Baker.
