It’s shaping up to be one hell of a July—again: While We’re Waiting…
June 29, 2015Brandon Moss on Tribe fan angst: “I can’t blame them”
June 29, 2015Terry Francona’s ever-present windbreaker may as well be an invisibility cloak considering how little criticism he’s getting for the plodding parade of mediocrity that is the 2015 Cleveland Indians. I’m not saying he really deserves any blame, mind you. But after a potentially spirit-breaking series sweep at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles this weekend (including a Sunday double-header in which the Tribe managed a combined zero runs across 18 innings), I do feel within my rights to throw at least one judgmental barb at the Teflon skipper. Hey Tito, a wiser man wouldn’t have waited until the ninth inning of the nightcap to get himself tossed for arguing balls and strikes. If an ejection is the one permissible way to avert your eyes from the sort of ineptitude going on between the lines right now, you might as well call the ump a “giant f#ck dumpling” in the first inning and go get yourself a well deserved nap. Dream about Johnny Damon’s beard or other comforting memories of happier times now past. Trust me, no one is going to judge you harshly around here.
When I informed my girlfriend that the Indians had failed to score a run in two complete nine-inning baseball games today, she asked, “Did they lose both games?” And while this did allow me to envision a fun 0-0 penalty shootout scenario in which goalie Yan Gomes rejects the shaky-legged attempt of a nerve-racked Manny Machado, the truth remains—yes, the Indians lost both games. And at a new low point record of 33-41 (12 games back of Kansas City, seven back in the Wild Card), they’re in real danger of making this entire season a lost cause.
Incidentally, the last time an Indians team was shutout in both games of a doubleheader was 40 years ago—September 26, 1975—a Friday in Fenway Park (they lost both games then, too). A 20 year-old rookie named Rick Manning went 0-for-8 on that day, and his buddy Dennis Eckersley took the loss in game one. Former Indian Luis Tiant got the win for the Sox in that one, while the nightcap saw Boston starter Reggie Cleveland hold his namesake ballclub to five hits across nine frames. Believe or not, the Indians played 17 doubleheaders that season. How did those fragile pitchers ever handle it?!
Not to linger too long on the largely irrelevant connection between these two doubleheader shutouts across history, but that ’75 Indians offense—with its strange mix of youngsters like Manning and Duane Kuiper, old vets like Boog Powell and player-manager Frank Robinson, and classic comic book characters like Charlie Spikes and Oscar Gamble—put up numbers almost eerily similar to that of this 2015 crew.
1975 Indians Offense (Full Season, 79-80 record): .261 AVG / .327 OBP / .392 SLG
2015 Indians Offense (33-41): .253 AVG / .327 OBP / .393 SLG
By the way, would you believe the Indians still have the 12th best team OPS in baseball right now? Better than the Rangers, Cubs, and Pirates, among others. Considering I’ve written about them scoring three runs in an entire weekend two weekends in a row, it’s hard to think of this offense being anything above historically hapless. Even when it comes to batting average with runners in scoring position, the Tribe ranks 27th, slightly better than the Rays, Reds, and equally disappointing Mariners. Hooray!
Friday:
Orioles 4, Indians 3
W: Darren O’Day (5-0), L: Marc Rzbdjdaztmwvsptzwy (1-3)
Boxscore Excerpt: Corey Kluber | 7 IP, 3 ER, 7 H, 1 BB, 10 K
I suppose we shouldn’t let Sunday’s embarrassment overshadow the fact that the Indians let yet another solid Corey Kluber start go to waste on Friday night. The first game of the three-game set in Camden Yards saw the Cleveland bats club three homeruns, which is nice and all. It’s just that Brandon Moss, Ryan Raburn, and Carlos Santana all connected with nobody on base. That is sub-par efficiency, gentlemen. It’s not as if the Indians didn’t put ducks on the pond, either. They had 10 hits and left nine men stranded. One of those hits was a Jason Kipnis single, extending his MLB-best hit streak to 20 games (pssst, it ended Sunday). The levels to which the Indians manage NOT to bunch their hits together is really becoming the stuff of legend.
That said, the all-solo-homer offensive strategy worked for a while. The Indians led 2-1 in the sixth, and Kluber was doing his part. Even after surrendering a couple dink-and-dunk runs in the sixth, the Cy Young winner avoided his 10th loss when Santana’s blast tied the game 3-3 in the eighth. Unfortunately, a Chris Davis RBI single off Marc Rzepczynski in the bottom of that inning made the difference.
Even setting Kluber’s league-worst run support and 3-9 individual record aside, the real permanent head-scratching fact of 2015 is that the Indians simply don’t win with their ace on the hill. They have now lost Kluber’s last five starts after opening the season losing the first seven games he started. The team is now 3-13 overall when their best pitcher takes the hill. That… is… just… I don’t know, man. Sometimes you just have to look at some facts and say, this probably isn’t going to be our year. Again.
Saturday:
Rain! Yay! Puddles! Puddles! Splash Splash!
Sunday (Game 1)
Orioles 4, Indians 0
W: Ubaldo Jimenez (7-3), L: Trevor Bauer (6-5)
Boxscore Excerpt: Nolan Reimold | 0-for-0, Defensive Replacement
Our old friend Ubaldo Jimenez brought a fresh bottle of lemon juice to the park for Game 1 of a day/night double-bummer. “Remember me?!” he shouted to the Tribe dugout as he held their dizzy batters scoreless through eight innings, ending even the amusing juxtaposition that had been Jason Kipnis’s hit streak. “Tis I, the mythical Good Ubaldo!” Perhaps Mickey Callaway wasn’t a requirement for Good Ubaldo to manifest himself after all, because Jimenez is 7-3 with a 3.09 ERA this season, and he torched the Indians to the tune of 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 H, 7 K, and zero walks. I don’t feel like many Tribe fans actually miss the guy or have any lingering feelings one way or the other, but this was unpleasant regardless.
Rather than giving Ubaldo the pleasure of being the featured boxscore excerpt, though, I went with Oriole reserve outfielder Nolan Reimold—a guy I used to cover as a college student writing recaps of Bowling Green Falcon games. Nolan is coming back from his 17th injury related setback, and has been hitting well, as he always has. Still, when you can’t get a start in either game of a doubleheader, it might mean you’re low man on the totem pole. If Reimold ends up on the waiver wire again, I hope the Indians give the right-handed hitter a look. Yes, for 90 percent sentimental reasons. But that leaves 10 percent for honest analytical rationale.
Sunday (Game 2)
Orioles 8, Indians 0
W: Chris Tillman (6-7), L: Toru Murata (0-1)
Boxscore Excerpt: David Murphy | 4-4 (hitting .336)
Chris Tillman is a good pitcher having a bad year—but not “bad” in the Kluber kind of way. Tillman has actually been straight up, old-school, Jose Jimenez style, garbage-fire bad against every team not called the Cleveland Indians. In 13 starts vs. teams without controversial mascots, Tillman is 4-7 with a 6.55 ERA. Against the Tribe, he’s now 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA across 13.1 innings of work. And on this night, with the Indians’ whole season feeling like it was hanging precariously from a cliff, Francona was forced to summon 30 year-old rookie Toru Murata to the mound to save the day. The Japan native, who’s been quietly working through the Indians farm system since 2011, gave it the ole college try. But after getting through three innings with a manageable 2-0 deficit on his hands, Murata was finally taken to the shed in the fourth, as homers by Chris Davis and Travis Snider (who also made an incredible diving catch on a Lindor liner in this game) broke things wide open and cast an awfully gloomy-looking shadow over the summer months ahead.
David Murphy and Roberto Perez produced six of the Tribe’s eight hits. Murphy is really having an exceptional season, it’s just that he’s generally the guy you see jogging off the field at the end of an inning, taking his helmet off after somebody just left him in scoring position.
The Indians had all kinds of chances to avoid the dreaded double-shutout in the late innings off former Cleveland farmhand T.J. McFarland. A double-play killed a two-on, one-out rally in the eighth. And after getting the first two men on base in the ninth, Carlos Santana grounded out, Ryan Raburn struck out (on the fateful call that got a frustrated Francona ejected), and Mike Aviles popped out. Between the two games of the DP, this brought Cleveland to a grand total of 1-for-11 with RISP, with 13 runners stranded in total.
This patient is flat-lining. Get out the panels! Clear! I need 10ccs of Boog Powell. And stat(s)!
7 Comments
I got a “great deal” on tickets to Sunday’s first game. I bought $15 vouchers for Lower Reserve Seats (regularly $30-36 seats). When I went to cash in the voucher (with indians gear on), they said there were no more seats available for the voucher, but that I could exchange them for $10 off a ticket. So then I paid $76 for 4 tickets (after $10 “rebate”) in the upper reserve. I just checked online and those tickets are roughly $20 a piece, but the ticket price was $29 walk up. Thanks Bal O’s for hooking me up with $20 seats for $34 bucks a pop and thank CLE for putting up NO runs in that game.
***Oh, and upper box section has no beer other than Miller Light, Budweiser, Blue Moon, and those Margarita beers. I had to go all the way to the main level to get a $9 can of Snake Bite IPA by Flying Dog.
…So you’re saying that the Indians have never won either game of a doubleheader when they’ve failed to score in both games?
{shakes head sadly}
Well at least someone enjoyed their time in Baltimore! Camden Yards still looks good.
Indians. Ugh.
Copyright that before the PR department gets a hold of it!!
I usually enjoy watching the Indians. Win or lose, it doesn’t matter to me that much, as long as they play decent baseball. Right now I wouldn’t pay a nickel to watch them. This team does nothing good – pitch, hit, or field.
part-time working I looked at the draft which said $9958@mk11
nn
http://www.FinanceworkworldDijital/weII/pay...