While We’re Waiting… Low blows
August 29, 2013The Diff: Revisiting the folly of Chris Perez’s future
August 29, 2013The Indians seemed to have cornered the market of demoralizing defeats. It seems like the month of August has been one long, grueling exercise in offensive futility, yet the Wahoos stay in almost every game and are rarely blown out in losses. That speaks to the quality of pitching they have been getting from both their starters and the bullpen. While the old adage is “good pitching beats good hitting,” you can’t win games unless you score runs. That is an obvious fact.
Last night’s 3-2 loss in Atlanta was just another in a long stretch of examples showing the Tribe’s small margin for error. Other than Sunday’s complete anomaly, where they committed four errors yet somehow pulled out a 3-1 victory against the sad sack Minnesota Twins, any small mistake the Indians make comes back to bite them. This one had two glaring instances.
The Tribe’s top dog Justin Masterson got the start and like Danny Salazar the night before, had just one bad inning – the second. Brian McCann led off the inning with a single, but quckly Masterson retired Dan Uggla and B.J. Upton. Andrelton Simmons then laced a double to left, but the slow-footed McCann had to be held at third. It looked like it wouldn’t be an issue for Masterson with opposing pitcher Paul Maholm coming up to bat. Except for the fact that Justin decided now was the time to lose his command as he walked the pitcher to load the bases. I bet you can’t guess what happened next?
Yep, Jordan Schafer, a thorn in the Tribe’s side all night, singled in McCann and Simmons to put the Braves on top 2-0. Walking Maholm with two on and two out is the kind of killer mistake you just cannot make, especially when your offense is colder than Minneapolis in January.
Throughout the game, the bats continued to do what they have done all month – leave runners on base. They put two on in the first on a Nick Swisher single and a Carlos Santana walk, but both were stranded when Asdrubal Cabrera grounded out. In the third, the first two Indians – Masterson and Michael Bourn – singled to start what was hoped to be a big inning. But Swisher grounded into a 1-6-3 double play which killed that threat.
Even after Mike Aviles’s solo homer in the fourth ended the Tribe’s scoring drought, they couldn’t capitalize after Michael Brantley singled, stole second, and Drew Stubbs walked. Masterson’s flair to right was caught by Schafer, ending the frame.
Trailing 2-1 in the sixth, Santana led off with a single but the next batter, Cabrera, grounded into a double play. Noticing a trend here?
This was not Cabrera’s night. Or month. Or year.
Despite all of these blown opportunities, Masterson kept the Indians in the game by holding down the Braves to just those two runs through six. In the seventh, the Tribe had another chance to tie the game when Brantley singled and moved to second on Stubbs’s groundout. With Masterson due up, manager Terry Francona went to his bench. He had plenty of options. If he decided to go to Jason Giambi or Lonnie Chisenhall, Braves skipper Freddy Gonzalez would have called for lefty Scott Downs who was warming. He had two right-handed bats to choose from. The .289 hitting Yan Gomes or Matt Carson, called up from Columbus earlier in the day to replace the injured Ryan Raburn.
Trailing by a run in the seventh with the tying run on second in a big game is not the time to use a 32-year old journeyman who was hitting .252 in AAA. The call was easy – use Gomes, move him to catcher, send Santana to first, Swisher to right, and have the new pitcher hit in the eighth spot replacing Stubbs. Instead, for some odd reason, Francona sent up Carson to face hard-throwing righty David Carpenter. Carson was completely overmatched, striking out on three pitches.
Put this one in the head-scratching decisions pile with Francona not walking Minnesota’s Joe Mauer with first base open in a tie game in the eighth, letting Joe Smith face him with lefty Rich Hill warming in the pen on July 19th’s 3-2 loss. I’m not saying Gomes would have gotten a hit there, but he certainly would have had a better chance than Carson.
The inning ended with Downs coming on to get Bourn on a fly ball to left.
The game did get interesting in the eighth as the Indians actually managed to scratch the tying run across. Of course the inning could have been bigger, but I guess you have to crawl before you can walk. Facing lefty Luis Avilan, Swisher and Kipnis hit back to back singles to get things started. Santana didn’t do his job and popped out to first. Cabrera then worked Avilan for a walk to load the bases. Aviles, the man who delivered the only scoring punch of the night for the Tribe, hit a slicing line drive to deep right which Schafer caught, but Swisher easily scored to tie the game. Kipnis also moved up a base to third.
That’s when Cabrera’s lack of focus once again reared its ugly head.
Brantley had a chance to put the Tribe ahead with a hit. On the first pitch, Cabrera took off for second and Brantley swung and missed. Inexplicably, Cabrera stopped running halfway to second, thinking Brantley had fouled the pitch off. He kept his head down and started walking back to first. Avilan realized it once he got the ball back from the catcher McCann and threw to second. Cabrera was dead to rights in a rundown. Rally dead. Inning over.
“I thought he fouled the ball off,” said Cabrera. “It was really bad for the team. It was my fault and that’s it.”
How many more mental mistakes can one player make in a season? Cabrera’s maddening play and $10 million salary for 2014 cannot be sitting well with the Tribe’s brass. As I said before, any window they had to get a haul for him has gone by the wayside with the way he has played in 2013.
This game was obviously not over and still tied, and we stayed that way into the bottom of the ninth. Joe Smith came back out after retiring two in the eighth. With one out, the speedy Schafer beat out an infield single and then stole second. Smitty recovered to get Justin Upton on a fly ball to center for the second out. With first base open, Francona wisely called for an intentional walk of all-star Freddie Freeman to face right-handed Chris Johnson. It was a better matchup for Smith and set up a force at any base. It was a good plan, except Johnson singled to left. Brantley made a good throw by Schafer beat it out for a Braves 3-2 walkoff win.
“Don’t let Joe Smith fool you, I’m the reason we lost this game,” said Masterson. “I had two out in the second out and Simmons in a good count. I hang a slider and he hits a double. I had the pitcher next and I walk him. Then Schafer gets a nice hit on the sinker away for those two runs. Without that it’s probably a 1-0 ballgame and a win for us.”
Then again Justin, if the bats could produce more, your team wouldn’t have been in this predicament in the first place.
This was another absolutely killer defeat in a game they easily could have won. Meanwhile, the A’s pounded the Tigers for a third straight game and the Indians now trail Oakland by four games for the second Wild Card spot. They are still five and a half games back of Detroit in the Central and no doubt will catch an angry team this weekend when they travel to Comerica Park.
“We’re sitting pretty good right now, as long as we start winning some games,” Smith said. “Tonight stinks. We needed a win. We needed it bad. So it hurts a little bit. We could’ve still got out of here with two out of three, which would’ve been great, especially heading into Detroit. I didn’t help us tonight. That hurts.”
There is still one game left in Atlanta that really has to be won. It is up to Ubaldo Jimenez (9-8, 3.95 ERA) to stop the bleeding. He will face off with Atlanta’s Kris Medlen (10-12, 3.74 ERA).
(AP Photo/John Bazemore)
25 Comments
Does anyone remember the begins of spring training? When Asdrubal Cabrerra came to camp in the “best shape of his life”. Just sayin
Yeah like when fatty Sabathia decided to start dieting before a playoff series. If it aint broke, don’t fix it. If a box of Captain Crunch every day for breakfast helps you win the Cy Young…
Starting pitching does well offense scores more then a run and the bullpen blows it. It’s like a dam with leaks popping up all over except the dam engineers are doing nothing except uttering one of my favorite Tribeisms, “The guys here just need to play better.” But hey the Pirates game was exciting it made me remember the days here. Oh and Marlon Byrd homered in his first game for Pittsburgh.
(And yes I realize, for those of you who like to pick apart comments as a way to justify what you are watching, that the Indians were far down on the list to submit a waiver request. My mentioning of Byrd is just one example of other teams in the hunt for the postseason who have done something to improve their teams. Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Boston, Texas, Detroit just to name a few.)
I was legimitately excited when we tied the game. We may have found ways to lose in excruciating fashion, but we have our fair share of late inning heroics as well. Then, not so much.
The time is NOW to start winning these games.
Hey, don’t talk about adding players here.
The Indians are great the way they are currently constructed!
Rabble rabble rabble.
In all seriousness though, why wasn’t there a claim on Willingham? He has to, at the very least, be a better option than the guy we just called up whom I cannot remember his name.
Why didn’t the runner from 3rd try to score when Cabrera in rundown? There were 2 outs we were in a rundown!!
Reynolds has 2 HRs in 11 games with NYY. He is batting 265 too!! lol
When Cabrera was walking back to the base and he got tagged out, I was thinking, he can’t really be out right?
Yea how’s the $6M man Alfonso Soriano doing?
No no no the schedule isn’t “easier” yet. That’s when they’ll make their move, watch, just wait.
Matt Johnny Carson was the player called up and what he doesn’t inspire you?
Listen I’m expecting my comment to be down ticked or dissected soon but for a team that got me excited by actually paying players to come here this winter, sure they may not have been the best players but compared to who they replaced they were friggin’ All-Stars, to watch a team who is legitimately contending for a playoff spot receive no support from the front office is pretty disheartening and irritating. This is the third year, really second of three, that this front office should have done something, anything to help this team yet to date other then a left handed reliever they’ve done nothing. Meanwhile as I said above other teams have done multiple moves heck even the Yankees and Royals have done more. Perhaps this is why attendance is lacking.
For those who may be tired of me repeating this over and over to bad. I’ll keep beatin’ my drum just like Jon Adams until this front office steps up and delivers. Have a nice day!
Ugh…only guy keeping me from collecting on my no postseason for NYY bet
I’m sure the Indians inquired about him it was just the Yankees dialed faster. We’ll find out more a few years from now.
One last rant, I promise on mgbode’s life, but I think the FO blew the trading Asdrubal card. Next year I believe is his final year under contract a contract which will pay him something like $10M. Based on his play this year, the last few years how many other teams do you think will be willing to trade for him now and give up anything remotely decent? On top of that how about Chris Perez, do you think he’ll be back? Granted moving him would have probably been more difficult but surely he must have been worth something to someone no? The true difficulty would have been in replacing him as closer. Yet another difficulty when you can’t draft.
most of us on here wanted Asdrubal and Perez traded this past offseason, but the rumors floated around for them were less than appealing.
Looks like Baltimore put in a waiver on Willingham:
http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/view/399121-os-looking-to-swing-deals-with-twins?eref=sihp
Huh ya did I must have missed it. I started the season rooting for Cabrera based on the other moves made but enough is enough. Unfortunately as I said earlier, now it’s probably to late.
walking the left-handed hitter with two outs to face the guy with the second best ba in the league was beyond dumb. you could pretty much guarantee a game-winning hit there. i don’t understand what francona’s mind set was there. makes no sense. its like walking the guy before miguel cabrera just to have a righty/righty matchup. another loss due to terrible management
if he played like past years we prob would have won a few more games so far this year though (Cabrera)
Absolutely that is why I was on his bandwagon to start the season. I figured with him, Kipnis and Santana plus the new guys the offense would be major league caliber. Man was I wrong. But what is most disappointing is his mental breakdowns especially in the field.
Baltimore also put a waiver claim in on Michael Morse from Seattle.
Wow I wish we could have pulled the trigger on one of those guys.
At the very least, they are again, an upgrade as a 4th OF and replace Giambi’s old bat as a situational DH.
The Orioles see the writing on the wall.
Orioles are definitely being proactive. Must be nice. It’ll be interesting to see if they get either. It shouldn’t cost much either especially Morse who has had an injury plagued season and is in the final year of his contract.
I know that if a team gets to the postseason then anything can happen. But it appears this year the Tribe just is not as good as the teams that will make the playoffs.
Simplistic I know, but they just need to do something to get a little better in any number of areas of the game. Defense, situational hitting, lock down bullpen. They don’t seem to have a true identity to hang their hats on.
Just me rambling but these games have been frustrating.
The silence on the waiver front is disconcerting. Saw the Hoynes piece about Willingham but have seen nothing since. With our on-paper soft Sept schedule it’s hard to believe this FO isn’t at least trying to get better. ACab and Swisher are not going to automatically come out of season-long slumps once the calendar turns.