Can LeBron James exorcise Cleveland’s Demons? While We’re Waiting…
June 1, 2015Know Your Foe: Stephen Curry, Sharpshooting Babyface
June 1, 2015Your surging Cleveland Indians took three out of four games in Seattle this weekend, and even though most of those games ended after 1am in the Eastern time zone, I’m going to break with tradition here and skip the obligatory “Sleepless in Seattle” reference. Similarly, if the Mariners had swept the series and gained ground on the Astros, I wouldn’t have informed Houston that it had “a problem.” If any 1990s Tom Hanks film is getting referenced in these recaps, it’s going to be Joe vs. The Volcano. And it wouldn’t even be ironically. That movie is delightful.
From Jonah Keri to Fangraphs, everyone seems on board with the Indians (24-26) moving forward much more like the May version of themselves (17-12) than the April one (7-14). To say the club is finally firing on all cylinders, however, would only be underselling their actual potential. Despite Jason Kipnis completing one of the most productive and efficient months by a hitter in Tribe history, the offense remains frustratingly out of sync and in search of a stabilizing force.
Role players like David Murphy and Ryan Raburn are performing far better than expected, while the shortstop and catcher positions have devolved into rally kryptonite. Through 50 games, Cleveland is hitting just .236 with runners in scoring position, ranking them 23rd in the Majors. Fortunately, the Seattle Mariners (also 24-26) are one of the few teams beneath them in that category (.219, 28th overall), which proved beneficial in this series. Meanwhile, by no coincidence, the Tigers (.274, 10th), Royals (.304, T-2nd), and the shockingly all-alone-in-first-place Minnesota Twins (.304, T-2nd) all rank among the league’s best in “the clutch” and still sit above the Tribe in the Central Division. Rather than focusing on a savior from outside the current roster to fix that problem, though, the biggest impact might come from Yan Gomes regaining his confidence and re-establishing himself as the team’s most dependable right-handed bat. He had two hits on Sunday after starting out 1-for-16 since coming off the DL. It was also the first time he’d played consecutive games since his return.
These are good signs that stir more dangerous, optimistic thinking.
Thursday:
Indians 5, Mariners 3
W: Corey Kluber (3-5), L: James Paxton (3-3), S: Cody Allen (10)
Boxscore Excerpt: Corey Kluber | 7 IP, 3 ER, 7 H, 1 BB, 13 K
Just a few weeks ago, there were some whispers out there about Corey Kluber’s legitimacy as a true elite ace—about whether the league had “figured him out” after his Cy Young season, attacking him early in counts to keep the “wipeout pitch” off the table. This theory is not holding up to scrutiny. To open the series in Seattle, Kluber was able to shrug off a couple homeruns by racking up another 13 strikeouts, including three in the seventh inning to conclude his broadcast day.
Considering that he’d been working with an average run support of about two and a half on the season, the three-spot the Tribe bats plated in the fourth inning probably felt like a baker’s dozen in its own right. Brandon Moss hit his team-best eighth homer in the second inning, and Jason Kipnis picked up his 47th and 48th hits in the month of May. If he could get to 50 by the end of the weekend, he and Kluber would be the first teammates to strike out 60 batters and notch 50 hits in a month since a couple ‘o fellas on the 1938 St. Louis Browns.
Friday:
Mariners 2, Indians 1
W: Taijuan Walker (2-5) L: Trevor Bauer (4-2)
Boxscore Excerpt: Taijuan Walker | 8 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 0 BB, 8 K
Statistically speaking, Taijuan Walker came into this game as arguably the worst starting pitcher in baseball. In his first nine starts—and I am admittedly especially aware of this because he has personally murdered by rotisserie team—the 22 year-old Walker was 1-5 with a 7.33 ERA and a WHIP over 1.60. He had only reached the seventh inning once. Maybe after seeing those numbers, the Indians didn’t find it necessary to game plan, because just about everybody in the line-up spent the evening hacking at 96mph fastballs up around their eyeballs. The wonky strike zone of home plate ump Pat Hoberg may have helped Walker’s cause, as he not only survived into the seventh, but went a full eight shutout innings.
Trevor Bauer, meanwhile, was every bit his equal aside from one bad pitch, which Seth Smith deposited in the bleachers for a 2-run homer in the sixth inning. As one might expect, things got interesting when Seattle’s beleaguered closer and air-archery champion Fernando Rodney entered the game. A Ryan Raburn triple cut the lead in half and brought Michael Brantley to the plate with the tying run 90 feet away. He popped out to end it. Jason Kipnis, meanwhile, went 1-for-3, putting him one hit away from completing that random, fairly meaningless tag team record mentioned earlier.
Saturday:
Indians 4, Mariners 3
W: Shaun Marcum (2-0), L: Roenis Elias (2-2), SV: Cody Allen (11)
Boxscore Excerpt: Jerry Sands | 1-1, 1 BB, 1 HR, 2 RBI
Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! The Sandman made his epic return in the second inning, blasting a two-run shot off Seattle starter Roenis Elias to put Cleveland up 3-0. Shaun Marcum bounced back from an ugly loss in his last start to keep the Mariners mostly in check (5.1 IP, 2 ER), and the bullpen—capped off by a four-out save from Cody Allen—helped a 4-3 lead stand up. Robinson Cano’s homerun off Marcum was just his second of the year, and the $240 million dollar man is only hitting .251 with an OPS under .650 on the season—about 200 points below his career average. Jason Kipnis was 0-for-4.
Sunday:
Indians 6, Mariners 3 (12 inn)
W: Zach McAllister (1-2), L: Dominic Leone (0-4)
Boxscore Excerpt: The Indians Bullpen | 6.2 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 2 BB, 6 K
Simultaneously one of the Indians’ most satisfying and frustrating games of the season. When you go 2-for-15 with RISP as a team and leave SEVENTEEN men on base, a happy flight home rarely follows. The same generally goes for games in which Danny Salazar inexplicably loses his cool after cruising through four innings, giving up three weak singles, a walk, and a balk before retiring a hitter in the fifth (a Mike Aviles throwing error was mixed in for good measure). Down 3-0 and managing zilch against Mariner starter Jay Happ (he spells it J.A. and wants it pronounced “Jay,” but I don’t have time for this kind of nonsense—he’s Jay now), the Indians felt very much D.O.A. and ready for their day off. But wouldn’t you know it, in the top of the sixth, Ryan Raburn once again came through with a big momentum building homerun, and Brandon Moss, Yan Gomes, and Michael Bourn followed with singles, cutting it to a 3-2 ballgame.
Moss went 4-for-7 on the day and Bourn continued his steady improvement, going 2-for-6 to raise his average to .248. Jason Kipnis reached the No. 50 milestone and added another hit and a game-tying sacrifice fly in the eighth for good measure. As the team continued to blow opportunity after opportunity to take the lead in the late innings, though, it was the bullpen that emerged as the heroes. Nick Hagadone, Ryan Webb, Bryan Shaw, Cody Allen, Zach McAllister, and Austin Adams all kept Seattle off the board, and a 12th inning, bases loaded walk to Michael Brantley—playing against his dad’s old team—put the Tribe in front for the first time. The red-hot David Murphy then slapped a single to right to plate two more and set up Adams for his first career save, slinging a couple 100mph heaters in the process.
So the Indians are 24-26, 6.5 games back of the Twins and packed in like sardines with every other AL team in the Wild Card picture. Maybe you’re still skeptical. You’ve put your faith in this club and gotten burned before. Well, just try to remember what Meg Ryan tells Tom Hanks in Joe vs. The Volcano right before they leap into the titular lava crater: “Nobody knows anything, Joe. We’ll take this leap, and we’ll see. We’ll jump, and we’ll see. That’s life, right?”
22 Comments
Next step for the suddenly hot Tribe is winning some games in the division. One reason April was so painful was because the AL Central-heavy schedule buried the team in the standings.
KC this week is a good place to start, obviously. I’ve been skeptical of their starting pitching for some time now and Moustakas and Cain have to regress to their respective means soon. Hopefully it’s this series!
If Marcum can go – one good start, one bad start, one meh start – I’ll take it.
As long as they are competitive, I watch them often. Great month of May. Hopefully we build on it in June. 6 games vs Det, 5 vs TB, 6 vs Balt. The only sub 500 team we play in June is Seattle at 24-26. Need to get 4-6 from Det. TB games will be huge too for wild card implications. Would like to see 4 of 7 from them, as well as at least 1 more from Sea. Start checking off tiebreakers for non-AL Cent opponents.
Can anyone tell me what happened at the end of the game yesterday that was so controversial? I turned it on as the bottom of the 12th started, and they were in the middle of some controversy with the umps and Francona — something about a foul ball? I was too busy at the time to pay much attention to the broadcast, and I’m too busy now to go to another “webpage” to find out, but am curious nonetheless. Francona looked steamed, and the umps looked clueless.
Can someone explain to my why we only play Tex 6 games this season? Same with Balt, LAA, BOS, Cin?
4 games with MIL, CHC? Take out one of those series and we have seven game series with 4 AL teams above.
Next tiebreaker for WC is best record in intradivision games.
Jason Kipnis is a beast! I’m happy to see him back raking again to silence the critics. After Brantley the second best positional player on the team.
The Good: Who would have guessed the platoon of Rayburn and Murphy would have been so good (I know, it’s only June but still…). Rayburn and his clutch catch, squared up immediately afterwards on a HR. Nice rebounds so far.
The Bad: The defense, as always. It almost did us in last night….particularly when Salazar started to unravel. I’ve got to imagine that the pitchers have the shaky D in the back of their minds (along with the fact that we have issues scoring runs). Another bad: hitting with RISP. Dear sweet lord they had so many chances last night with runners parked at 3. Which brings me to…
The Ugly: Ramirez and his perpetually stench smelling face. Terrible in two key situations where he failed to score the runner from 3rd. His bat has been atrocious. He’s like a dirt poor man’s Felix Fermin at this point. If only we could send him back to AAA for some seasoning and swap him with somebody else. If only there was somebody else there…
Need the interleague games, I guess.
I’d rather let Ramirez struggle and provide Lindor the time he needs to develop. His stint in the minors doesn’t have to do with service time at this point, so I’m okay with suffering a while longer if it gives him the best chance to succeed in the Bigs.
That is a perfect description of his face.
They were talking about some BS for a long time. Talking about where they were going to go for dinner after the game, etc, then they said they wanted to call one of their buddies, and went over to tell the manager from Sea that they needed more information on the local resturants.
The umpires called foul ball on a fair ball when Moss was up (current score 6-3). The 1B was standing on the base and he caught the ball with a foot on the bag. But the umpire called foul ball and everyone stops. Don’t know how they can call it fair after they called foul and stopped the play, but that is what they did.
Bush league. Also we have 1 x 3 game series with STL and PIT.
Every team plays 20 interleague games now.
Ah. So . . . where did they go to dinner.
And if/when an umpire calls “foul,” isn’t the play automatically dead? But I guess if it actually was a fair ball, that’s the right result.
Yes, and that is why there was an argument and they changed the call to OUT?!?
No affect on the game overall
Tito strikes me a health food nut. Probably some Seattle okra vegan tofu place.
Nothing says “health food” like 100 tobacco-laced bubble gum pieces every night.
Cut one of those 4 game series out and we play everyone in the AL 7 times.
That’s not food. Just saying, Tito is in pretty good shape for a 55-year-old. I’ll spare you the topless flexing pic.
Talk to Manfred.
$83 / h0ur @mk13
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