Just a few weeks back, I started to question how much longer Masterson could stay in the Indians’ rotation.  Early in the season, I knew it had the potential to get ugly, but I was all for sticking with him for the year to see if he could figure it out.  But each time Masterson took the mound, things seemed to get worse: his control looked off, lefties were still pounding him, and he just couldn’t catch a break.  For his sake, I started to wonder if Masterson didn’t need a break from the rotation.  Further, it looked like Laffey’s demotion to Columbus signaled that the front office had seen enough of the experiment as well, and they were on their way to shifting Masterson back to the ‘pen, as soon as Laffey could get stretched out.  I can’t say I disagreed.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to demotion.  Masterson went on a three game tear that looked something like this: [Read more...]