Ball Played: Indians beat Sale with clearance rack players

Terry Francona might as well have raised a white flag from the dugout before the game and unsheathed his broad sword to present to Chris Sale before the game. Tito has made it customary for Lonnie Chisenhall and Jose Ramirez to avoid tough left-handed pitchers, but Francona also sat Jason Kipnis and Michael Brantley on Labor Day. That left the Cleveland Indians without three of their four hottest hitters¹ and without three of their best defenders.² The Indians who did play the game, however, went out and scratched out a hard-fought 3-2 victory of the AL Central rival Chicago White Sox.

Truly, if there is one thing to be taken from the second half Indians surge it is a sign of their resilience. Carlos Carrasco missed multiple starts with a sore shoulder. Danny Salazar fell ill, missed a start and lost five to six pounds. Corey Kluber pulled a hamstring and a seat up on the bench instead of pitching his last expected start. And, Trevor Bauer has struggled recently. With the main consistent strength falling victim to the grind of the MLB season, a lesser team would have collapsed while looking to next season.

But, the Indians have continued to win games. After taking two out of three in Detroit, beating Chris Sale in Chicago was a tone-setter for a series with a team that could have tied the Indians in the standings with the win. Instead, the White Sox fell two games behind. For the Indians, they passed up the Tampa Bay Rays to leave just three teams ahead of them (Los Angeles Angels, Minnesota Twins, Texas Rangers). If the Rangers keep winning at their recent rate (Indians still five games back), then the resiliency will not matter. But, the Indians have given us all a reason to watch baseball into September. And, September baseball with even a chance at the playoffs is a beautiful thing.

Keys of the Game

Trevor Bauer’s second inning

Oooooo boy, that second inning:
Ball. Ball. Ball. Ball.
Ball. Ball. Ball. Ball.
Ball. Ball. Ball. Ball.

Over the first three batters of the second inning, Trevor Bauer managed to walk all three. He threw exactly zero strikes in those three plate appearances. He drove Mickey Callaway to the bullpen phone to urgently have another pitcher ready to go in case Bauer would continue to forget where the plate might be.

Now, in fairness, many of these pitches were just outside the strike zone—check out the green dots next to that box over to the right. Some umpires might have even called them strikes. However, they were not strikes on Monday and Bauer needed to learn that lesson in the second inning.

With the bases now loaded, Carlos Sanchez grounded into a perhaps he should have thrown to first instead fielder’s choice as Aviles barely had time to obtain the out at second base. After Tyler Flowers hit a sacrifice fly to the deepest part of right field, the White Sox led 2-0 in a game that they had yet to record a hit.

Bauer Power:
Bauer had another four pitch walk in the first inning and gave Adam Eaton a free base in the second inning after the runs scored, but those did not cause any damage. After that second inning though, Bauer had figured out where Home Plate Umpire Lance Barksdale was not calling strikes and utilized this knowledge to not allow another walk for the rest of the game.

In fact, Bauer would go seven strong innings despite his rough beginning, and he would only allow two hits on the day without allowing another run. One of those hits came in the third inning with Avisail Garcia hitting what was marked down in the official books as a triple to right field. However, anyone watching the game saw Ryan Raburn awkwardly tracking the ball and jumping before the ball came to him (and also about five feet before the wall). Let’s just say it takes a lot for the official scorekeeper to mark down an error on an outfielder during a catch attempt.

The only other hit the White Sox obtained against Bauer was also by Mr. Garcia. He was able to find a good swing on an 0-2 count and drive the ball to Abraham Almonte in center field to lead off the sixth inning, but Bauer retired the next three batters after him.

Speaking of power:
Chris Sale had given up 15 home runs in over 177 innings pitched in 2015. He had only given up two home runs in a game four times and had not given up more. Nor had Sale given up more than two home runs in 174 innings in 2014. To find the last time that Chris Sale had given up as many as three home runs in a game, one has to go all the way back to September 15, 2013 when Sale had given up three home runs in a defeat to the Cleveland Indians during their big push toward securing a Wild Card position. Hmmm…

But, the Cleveland Indians hit three home runs on Monday, and it was enough even though all three were solo home runs. Mike Aviles started off the scoring for the Indians with a lead off blast in the fourth inning. Ryan Raburn atoned for his third inning defensive miscue with a fourth inning shot to follow Aviles around the bases. And, to secure the needed last run for the win, Raburn again took a Chris Sale pitch and put every last bit of his power behind the bat to once again clear the fences (416 and 422 feet were the approximate measures of his two home runs).

Notice Melky Cabrera on the second home run. He knows.

Closing Time (you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here): The backend of the Indians bullpen has looked shaky at times over the past few weeks. However, on Monday, it just looked dominant. Bryan Shaw came out and struck out two batters while getting Melky Cabrera to meekly ground out to Giovanny Urshela. Cody Allen just looked plain nasty. His two seam sinking fastball looked like he put a weight on the bottom of the ball as it dropped below the barrels. He mixed it in with his four seam fastball that stayed true and into Yan Gomes mitt. Trayce Thompson was able to fight off a tough 0-2 pitch to single (and advance to second base on a wild pitch), but the game hardly seemed in doubt as Geovany Soto grounded to Francisco Lindor to end the game.

The Numbers

There are some good things and some bad things that came out of this game, here they are in numerical format

MOAR RAY BURN
Raburn has only played in three games since August 28. Despite mostly sitting on the bench, Raburn is 5-for8 with two walks, two doubles, and two home runs in those games for a ridiculous .625/.700/.1.625 slash (small sample size alert!). Even going back to the beginning of August, Raburn has only started seven games (pinch hit in three others) with a .476/.560/.1.048 slash set.

Also, have to enjoy Ryan Raburn crushing the Chicago White Sox. A big part is all the left handed pitching the White Sox have in their rotation (and have had), but Raburn still has done good work against them.

Ryan Raburn saves ALL of his RBIs for the White Sox. pic.twitter.com/cKjRgsCZRj

— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) September 7, 2015

Raburn has hit .296 (107-for-361) with 20 homers, 82 RBIs and a .524 SLG in 118 career games vs. White Sox. Has four multi-homer games.

— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) September 7, 2015

Perhaps, it is due to his violent swings when he faces White Sox pitching? He sure isn’t holding anything back (including his bat).

Sale is still impressive

Why did @Indians line up 9 righties? Well, Chris Sale hasn’t allowed a HR to a LHH since 2012. http://t.co/u66pIVRAl8 pic.twitter.com/JxcTiD8E7l

— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) September 7, 2015

So, at least Sale can keep that streak alive. He also can become the first Chicago White Sox pitcher to obtain 250 strikeouts in a season since 1912 with just 11 more this season. It’s not all bad being Chris Sale despite the meager run support and poor record to go with his outstanding peripheral numbers.

But, one of the only lefties to ever hit a home run off of Chris Sale was Travis Hafner because of course it was Pronk!

Only two lefties have ever homered off Chris Sale: Brennan Boesch and Travis Hafner. Boesch did it last in 2012–that was 454 hitters ago.

— Chuck Garfien (@ChuckGarfien) September 7, 2015

AL Central
Even with three of the last four games ending in victory against AL Central opponents, the Indians are still 21-32 against the AL Central. Reaching .500 against the division is still a long shot, but it is still the most likely way that the Indians win enough games to grab a postseason berth. With 23 games left against the AL Central, the Indians would need to go 17-6 in them.

Also, the Indians are 29-34 in Cleveland. So, despite only the Texas Rangers having more wins on the road, the Indians still need to do some work at Progressive Field in order to even the slate in front of the home crowds.

1. Kipnis, Brantley, Chisenhall [↩]
2. Kipnis, Chisenhall, Ramirez [↩]