While We’re Waiting… Tribe’s MASH Unit, Pressure Players and Zips Prepared
August 29, 2011Browns Looking to Hardesty to Help While Others Heal
August 29, 2011With such a short margin for error, the Indians entered the weekend series with the Kansas City Royals six and a half games behind the first place Detroit Tigers. Losing three of four to the sad sack Seattle Mariners seemed to be the death blow (Kramer didn’t record this one for Brody) to the AL Central title hopes, but the Tribe was still thinking they have a shot to hang around thanks to the six games remaining with the Tigers. As if things couldn’t have gotten worse for our Wahoos, two more key members of the team were put on the DL, but an old friend came back home.
The Indians ended up taking two out of three from the Royals, but gained no ground in the division, because the Tigers took two of three from the Minnesota Twins. Meanwhile, with the White Sox sweeping the Mariners in Seattle, the Indians fell to third place, a half game behind the 66-65 South Siders. The series could have easily been a Tribe sweep, but once they once again were derailed by the Bruce Chen express. There was a ton of drama both on and off the field this weekend for our Tribe.
Michael Brantley and Josh Tomlin were added to the DL brigade. In the last 15 years, I cannot remember a Tribe team this banged up. You know it by now – Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner have made several DL stints. Jason Kipnis, who came up a house of fire from AAA, has been on the DL for weeks. Carlos Carrasco is there as well. Shin-Soo Choo spent six weeks on the DL with a broken hand. Now, Brantley and Tomlin are taking their turns.
Brantley has spent weeks battling a sore wrist. He has taken time off recently to rest the wrist in hopes that it would get better, but it just hasn’t. You could see the pain he was in almost every time he swung the bat. I give Brantley a ton of credit trying to fight through the pain and perfoming well while doing so, but his season ended Sunday when the team placed him on the 60-day DL. He will have surgery to remove part of the hamate bone in his right hand.
“We knew just by looking at his face when he swung,” Manager Manny Acta said. “He was stretching it in the outfield. That’s not a good sign. We thought it was better to lose him for a few days than the rest of the season.”
With Choo injuring his side and missing two of the three games in the series, the Indians were without their regular starting outfield (Brantley, Sizemore, Choo) altogether yet again. Only Shelley Duncan remains from the opening day roster of five outfielders (Travis Buck, Austin Kearns, Choo, Brantley).
Brantley’s first full season in the bigs has to be deemed a success. He finished hitting .266 with seven homers and 46 RBIs as the Indians primary left fielder, though he played a lot of center as well. Just as important, he hit .294 with runners in scoring position and .327 with runners on base.
And then there is Tomlin, who’s streak of consecutive starts of five innings or more came to an end in Wednesday’s loss. It also may have been the last we see of him this season. The Texan who came out of nowhere to be one of the Indians most reliable pitchers, was placed on the DL with an elbow problem. He is being shut down for the next two weeks before being re-evaluated. Unless the Indians make a remarkable comeback to put themselves back in the race with two weeks left, I can’t imagine Tomlin being activated. But Tomlin thinks otherwise.
“I am very confident I’ll be back pitching this year,” he said. “From what I’ve been told, if things continue to progress, I can pitch again before the season’s over.”
That leaves the Indians with David Huff as your fourth starter and a callup needed to take the fifth spot Tuesday. That will most likely be either Jeanmar Gomez as Zach McAllister started yesterday for Columbus.
As I said earlier in the week, its just too many injuries for this young ball club to overcome.
Despite the doom and gloom, there were positive vibes all weekend at Progressive Field, thanks to the return home of Jim Thome. Yeah, I will admit it, I am completely in the tank for this guy. I wrote about it a few weeks ago when he was in the midst of his drive for 600 homers, but there is no classier man in the game today than Gentleman Jim. He arrived in Cleveland on Friday for his first game in a Tribe uniform since 2002 and all those great feelings came back.
It was just like Kenny Lofton’s return in 2007. Everyone in this town pines for the halcyon days of 1994-2001 when sellouts and big wins were the norm. Bringing Thome home made us all nostalgic again. Friday night’s crowd was a sellout and was electric, each and every time Thome came to the plate. Despite going 0-4, he could do no wrong, and the Indians won 2-1 behind the pitching of Ubaldo Jimenez.
The first time Thome stepped to the plate had to be a thrill for everyone in that ballpark. Not that any of us watching on TV would know it, because STO decided that the bottom of the second was a good time to run their usual commericals touting “Chuck’s Last Call” rather than stick with the visual of Thome being announced and walking up to the dish for the first time in the home Indians Whites. Just a disgraceful move by the team’s own TV network. This was a botch job of epic proportions.
But I digress.
Thome homered the opposite way on Saturday night to tie the game at four, in a back and forth affiar that that saw the Tribe come out victors 8-7. This time it was Asdrubal Cabrera, the team’s undisputed MVP and leader, who did the damage. His three run homer in the eighth put the Tribe on top after Alex Gordon’s three run-blast off of Tony Sipp gave the Royals the lead. But really, Friday and Saturday nights were all about Thomecoming. He started both games as the DH replacing the injured Hafner, and the Indians won them both.
Welcome back, Jimmy.
Now this is what we signed up for Ubaldo! Seven innings. one earned run. 10 K’s. That is the kind of stuff that makes Ubaldo Jimenez so attractive for the next two years. If he only could have delivered that last Sunday in Detroit, the Tribe could still feel good about their standing in the AL Central race.
Friday night was all about Jim Thome, but his return overshadowed Jimenez’s great start. It was sorely needed not just for him, but for his team. The Royals lineup is loaded with young talent and Ubaldo was blowing them away all night.
“I feel better,” Jimenez said after the game. “It takes a lot of pressure off. I came to a new team that was fighting for the playoffs. If you don’t do well, you feel really bad.”
He has roughly five starts remaining. I hope he makes them all count to get the fans more excited about his potential for next year. He seems to love Progressive Field. In his two home starts, he has allowed just one earned run in 15 innings.
Ezequiel Carrera’s baseball IQ needs work. I like Zeke. I really do. He has good at bats, slaps the ball and knows how to use his speed to get on base. That’s the good news. The bad news is he can’t drop a sacrifice bunt to save his life, he gets picked off of first more times than I care to discuss, and his defense has been shaky at best.
If one more person inside the Indians organization says “Carrera is the best defensive outfielder we have,” I’m going to scream. He nearly cost the team Saturday night’s come from behind win because he misplayed a single into a double to leadoff the Royals ninth, and twice yesterday he was playing so unbelievably deep that two balls bounced in front of him in the first that should have been caught. One he broke back on, which made zero sense. That cost the Indians a run in a game they lost 2-1.
I don’t know if its the coaches who are the blame, but its almost as if they enjoy watching Zeke play three steps in front of the track and sprint to every ball in shallow center.
The bunting drives me nuts. When he tries to drag bunt for a base hit, he knows what he is doing. But when Zeke is called upon to lay down a sacrifice bunt, he either fouls two off, or fails to do the job. Yesterday in the eighth inning was a prime example. With the tying run at first with nobody out, he should have been pushing a bunt to the third base side. Instead, he bunted towards first, sharply, and Jerad Head was easily thrown out at second.
Carrera has the talent, no doubt, to be a decent fourth outfielder, but I worry about his baseball IQ. Its also possible that he is being overexposed due to the Tribe’s glut of outfield injuries. But the rest of the way, he will be getting a lot of playing time and leading off.
The Indians can’t beat Bruce Chen. And guess who we have to face on Friday in Kansas City? Bruce Chen! In his last five starts against the Tribe, he’s 5-0 with a 2.81 ERA. Just thought you should all know that.
Up next for the Wahoos is a four-game set with the Oakland A’s, who sit 63-70. Game one will feature David Huff (1-2, 2.70 ERA) for the Tribe and Brandon McCarthy (7-6, 3.72 ERA) for the A’s.
(photo via Joshua Gunter/ The Plain Dealer)
8 Comments
One more thing about Zeke’s IQ: Friday night, bottom of the 7th, bases loaded, 2 outs, 3-1 count, pitcher having a hard time finding the strike zone. “What do you do?” – Howard Payne. Correct answer: you take a pitch. Even if it’s a strike, now it’s a full count and the runners get a jump while you make the pitcher have to bring it again. What did Zeke do? Swung at ball 4. He got bailed out a couple pitches later, but that realy stuck in my craw. And I’m also a Zeke fan, as I think this team has a need for speed. (OOH! Double reference there!)
They were lucky to not have been swept by KC. I am still of the thinking that all of this is coming as too little too late. The ’12 season is starting to look promising though. Maybe Ubaldo isn’t a pressure guy, if that’s the case it’s still a bad trade.
The lack of run support this team has given Justin Masterson has been downright criminal. If they gave him even below average run support he would be in the discussion for the Cy Young (albeit behind Verlander, CC and likely Weaver). The Indians also probably would have won at least a half dozen more games. You just can’t lose games when your ace goes out there and only gives up two runs and when you’re facing the weak Royals pitching staff. Detroit gets that pitching staff next, and I’ll bet they put some runs on the board.
It gets to a point where Acta or someone needs to realize Zeke’s weaknesses and quit calling a sacrifice in that situation. Maybe send the runner early and let zeke do a drag bunt… or just let him swing away and risk the DP.
At least Jerad Head looked pretty good yesterday after gettin the call-up. Head-Fukudome-Choo could be the everyday line-up until sizemore returns (which may be soon?). Wasnt it scary though seeing Head- Carrera- Donald as the due up in the 8th… it was like straight from Cbus.
I propose a moratorium on day games, are these guys not getting enough sleep or something? They always save their worst performances for day games.
“The lack of run support this team has given Justin Masterson has been downright criminal”
agreed. in fact, since the allstar break, he’s been just as good as Verlander.
don’t get me wrong, Verlander deserves the Cy (his June was otherworldly), but he wouldn’t get nearly the praise he is getting right now without those 20 wins. part of that is him, but part is the run support he gets too.
C’mon now Masterson is/was never on par with Verlander.
Carrera is Alex Cole 2.0. Hurry back Grady, please.
didn’t say he was on par with Verlander. in fact, i said Verlander had an unreal June (coupled with his overall amazing consistency means he deserves the Cy).
there’s a major difference between being on par for a stretch with being as good overall.