Peter King has Browns taking OT Ronnie Stanley, trading back into first round for QB — again
April 26, 2016The Browns’ ongoing search for Casablanca: While We’re Waiting…
April 27, 2016While it was certainly nice to see Michael Brantley’s familiar face back in the starting line-up on Tuesday night, the Cleveland Indians gave us a few other familiar sights of the less encouraging variety. Most glaringly, they lost to the last-place Minnesota Twins on a ninth inning walk-off for a second consecutive night—this time 6-5 on a Miguel Sano RBI single off Cody Allen, who continues his trend of sluggish Aprils. The Indians offense, for the fourth time in the past week, posted double-digit strikeouts, with Mike Napoli now sitting at 27 K’s in 69 at-bats this year—a solid .391 average. Cody Anderson was erratic for a fourth consecutive start, and opponents are now hitting .374 off him, worst among all AL starters. And then there’s that familiar .500 mark. Cleveland was 81-80 a year ago, and they’re 9-9 right now. If you thought sweeping the Tigers in Detroit was gonna light this fuse, you’ve latched on to the wrong rocket ship.
Even the Indians’ struggles with the pesky Twinkies isn’t a new development. Minnesota has now won 9 of 11 against the Tribe dating back to last season. These past two nights in a mostly empty Target Field, though, were particularly brutal. With a chance to carry over momentum from the Tiger series, make up ground in the Central, and shake off the demons of mediocre Aprils past, Cleveland has let two winnable games slip from their grasp.
On Monday, they couldn’t capitalize on 12 hits, leaving 10 men on base. Tuesday, they managed half as many hits, but cashed them in for 5 runs, leaving only one man on. It was a quirky 180 in efficiency, but the final results were still eerily similar.
As Yan Gomes had done the night before, Mike Napoli played would-be hero, tomahawking a solo homer off Kevin Jepsen with two outs in the ninth to tie the game 5-5.
https://vine.co/v/iPWzZit3mKB
These are the kinds of clutch hits that just never seemed to come along in 2015, so the fact that the bullpen sullied them both in such short order is hard to stomach. Zach McAllister at least ripped off the band-aid mercifully on Monday, coughing up Oswaldo Arcia’s game winning homer with one pitch. Cody Allen, on the other hand, got into a whole long, complicated situation.
After a leadoff single by Danny Santana in the ninth, Yan Gomes gunned down the speedy center fielder trying to steal second. Santana was initially called safe, but a replay review reversed the call and seemed to save Allen’s hide. Instead, Cody No. 2 picked up where Cody No. 1 left off, giving up a double to Brian Dozier, intentionally walking Joe Mauer, and serving up a juicy one on a silver platter for Sano to rip into centerfield for the game winner.
https://vine.co/v/iPWaWjPBBWK
I guess if it’s any consolation, Allen’s 7.27 ERA through April 26 is much improved from the same date last year, when he was sitting at a Bryan Shaw-ish 13.50.
The beneficiary of both Twin walkoffs was Kevin Jepsen, who is 2-0 so far in this series, despite giving up the titanic blast to Napoli in the ninth. As with Arcia’s homerun on Monday, the lack of fan noise on Sano’s game winning hit was… odd. I know it’s cold and damp in the Twin Cities right now, and their team is rebuilding, but are these folks missing the Metrodome?
If not for Carlos Carrasco’s injury, Cody Anderson would have to be teetering on the brink of a demotion. Instead, he’ll get a chance to figure things out for at least a while longer. I’m not a Major League pitching coach nor an analytics wizard, but me thinks the improved velocity that was supposed to turn Anderson into Matt Harvey may in fact, perhaps, be contributing to his struggles. Where Cody may have been content to hit corners and pitch to contact a year ago, he might be more willing to rely on his “stuff” right now. And his stuff is mostly flying right back over his head.
As noted, the Indians didn’t do much hitting on Tuesday off the Twins’ suddenly serviceable starter Ricky Nolasco. Brantley looked understandably rusty in an 0-for-4 night out of the cleanup spot (not a big fan of him in that slot, but I also am not a fan of making a big fuss over batting orders). Jason Kipnis and Juan Uribe each hit solo homers, and Santana and Lindor drove in runs to tie the game at 4-4 in the sixth. After Anderson gave up a moonshot, go-ahead homer to the No. 9 hitter Eddie Rosario in the bottom of that frame, he proceeded to shout expletives at himself while covering his mouth with his glove. Earmuffs, Tribe fans! Anyway, rough night. And Wednesday is probably gonna be a rainout.
Old Baseball Card of the Day:
1995 SP Foil Premier Prospects – Marty Cordova
Either this card was photoshopped (using the leading ‘90s software of the period) or Marty Cordova was freakin’ ripped—which is to say, he was a baseball player in the mid ‘90s. I’m not throwing any accusations Marty’s way, because (a) who I am to say how said rippage was achieved, and (b) if you’re not a potential Hall of Famer, who really cares about your long-ago training habits anyway?
It’s been 15 years since Cordova’s magical April as a Cleveland Indian—his lone year with the ball club. In just 14 games that month, he hit .409 with 4 HR and 13 RBI. Marty, who looked confusingly like Clark Kent despite not wearing glasses, continued his tear into May, posting an OPS of 1.016 through the first two months of the year, with 9 homers, 31 RBIs, and a 22-game hitting streak mixed in. He wound up slashing .301 / .348 / .506 for the year, and went 3-for-12 in the 2001 ALDS against Seattle, the only postseason series of his career.
C-Cap Recap Custom Box Score
April 26, 2016
Twins 6, Indians 5
Green Highlight (as in “Great”): The Manship is unsinkable.
Yellow Highlight (as in “Almost Green”): The Carrasco injury and Chisenhall’s struggles are creating an ecosystem in which the Progressive Field habitat of the Tyler Naquin (Tylerapin Naquinius) may yet be preserved.
Red Highlight (as in “Stop, You’re Bad”): Lonnie looks so lost that Francona opted to pinch-hit the right-handed Marlon Byrd for him, against a right-handed pitcher, in the late innings. It’s harder and harder to envision Chisenhall finding that next gear many fans long believed he had.
Finally, many thanks to Cookie himself, Carlos Carrasco, for tweeting out my Cody Anderson doodle before Tuesday’s game. He didn’t include any attribution, and so perhaps some people thought Carlos was using his rehab time to take up color pencil work. In any case, no hard feelings.
Can’t wait to watch Cody get to work against the Twins — go get ’em Big Rig! 🚜🚜🚜 pic.twitter.com/8CrltU3fIb
— Carlos Carrasco (@Cookie_Carrasco) April 26, 2016
16 Comments
Tribe doesn’t need a 5th starter until May 7th (and rainouts could push that back), so why not send Anderson to AAA to work some things out?
Cordova’s big season with the Tribe screamed PED enhanced as he had one more decent year and was out of baseball 2 years later.
Can we move Man Chips to setup? Will Hunter be able to provide spark in bullpen?
I may have to finally throw in the towel on Lonald Johnathan Chisenthorpe III.
I think Hunter is still a little way’s away from a call-up. And based on Tito’s loyalty to Shaw, I’d be very surprised if Manship swapped places with him. It would more likely be one of those scenarios where Shaw gets a phantom injury to clear his head for a couple weeks, and The Manship could move up a peg. Would have to still think that McAllister, and maybe even Joba, would still be ahead of him for late inning work, though.
It could make sense. I’m not sure if they’d rather make Cody the odd man out or keep Bauer as a long man in the pen in between spot starts. With everyone seemingly on board the Cody Train in spring, though, his extreme hittability (again, most hittable pitcher out of 102 qualifiers right now) certainly has been massively disappointing.
Is House really that far behind Anderson? Yeesh.
Also, obligatory I HEART FRANKIE comment.
I still can’t talk about the Carrasco injury. I need a few more days to come to terms with it.
Fast and straight is no way to get by on a four-seamer in MLB.
I need to look up if Cody’s increased velocity has decreased his horizontal and vertical movement on it. Would explain how that uptick in balls over his head is happening.
Hmm, a pain in the neck. Sounds plausible.
http://www.kira-fansub.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ba-dum-tss1.jpg
I just noticed you Swiss Miss’d Jason and Tyler is Nesquik in the lineup card. I declare shenanigans. Swiss Miss and Nesquik do not make candy.
I probably made this comment in Clayman’s last write-up, and I’ll probably make it again in the next: LOVE the lineup names. All of the candy names were good, but some of the Twins names made me LOL.
Also, props for Cookie sharing your artwork! Bummer he didn’t cite his source, but does that mean he’s part of the Blawg Pound???
At 2am, hot chocolate is the same as candy. Leave me alone.
thank you, sir. I might be a little lazy with tonight’s boxscore, presuming they play. I can only come up with so many more ways to say Kipnis. And these 8pm starts and replay filled games are murder.
I blame Paul Molitor.
“my room mate Mary Is getting paid on the internet 98$/hr”..,……..!wc349ctwo days ago grey MacLaren P1 I bought after earning 18,512 DoIIars..it was my previous month’s payout..just a little over.17k DoIIars Last month..3-5 hours job a day…with weekly payouts..it’s realy the simplest. job I have ever Do.. I Joined This 7 months. ago. and now making over. hourly 87 DoIIars…Learn. More right Here !wc349:➽:➽:➽➽➽➽ http://GlobalSuperJobsReportsEmploymentsExpressGetPayHourly$98…. .❖❖:❦❦:❖❖:❦❦:❖❖:❦❦:❖❖:❦❦:❖❖:❦❦:❖❖:❦❦:❖❖:❦❦:❖❖:❦❦:❖❖:❦❦:❖❖:❦❦:❖❖:❦❦::::::!wc349……,..