Kyrie Irving: This is the greatest feeling in the world
April 21, 2015The Tribe’s Ray Fosse — Roger Remembers
April 21, 2015The pitching matchup for Monday’s game was strongly in favor of the Cleveland Indians. Trevor Bauer had been the best pitcher on the staff in the early season having given up a mere two runs in twelve innings pitched, while striking out nineteen and allowing a total of thirteen baserunners. The Chicago White Sox countered with John Danks who had yet to complete six innings in either of his starts, while he had given up four earned runs in each. In fact, it was the same pitching mismatch that took place last Wednesday on Jackie Robinson Day that the Indians won.
Apparently, Terry Francona wanted to test the limits of Trevor Bauer and the rest of the team when he decided to start Mike Aviles in center field and Brett Hayes at catcher. I enjoy having Mike Aviles on the team as he is willing to prepare and be the utility player that every MLB team needs. And, I do not find fault in him for accepting whatever role that Terry Francona gives him. However, it is frustrating that Francona bats a bench player with a .300 career OBP second in the lineup. It is doubly frustrating when he puts a utility infielder as the starting center fielder1.
The gambles with the lineup appeared to pay off early with Aviles having a great day at the plate going 2-for-3 with a walk, Brett Hayes hitting a home run, and Trevor Bauer working out of all the bad situations that he created. However, the Indians offense still struggled more than it should have against John Danks, and those struggles left the door slightly ajar for the White Sox. But, Cody Allen came in to close that door in a 3-0 game, and he was coming off of two straight dominant appearances where he recorded five of the six outs he needed by strike out and had not allowed a hit.
However, on Monday, the Cody Allen of the April 11 Detroit game would reappear. The Cody Allen without control of his fastball and left his curveball high. The Cody Allen that was forced to throw strikes that allowed the batters to have an easier time hitting his pitches. And, Terry Francona watched.
Terry watched as Avisail Garcia hit a double into right field. Terry watched as Cody walked a Conor Gillepsie and threw a wild pitch to advance the runners. Terry watched as Alexei Ramirez drilled a double into left center to tie the game, and Tyler Flowers followed it up with a ground ball that found its way to Michael Brantley too. Then, Terry watched Mickey Callaway walk to the mound where he appeared to exchange a few pleasantries with Cody and Brett before returning to the dugout. And, so it continued as Gordon Beckham and Adam Eaton kept Michael Brantley chasing the ball.
At no point during this parade of White Sox hitters did an Indian relief pitcher begin to warm up in the bullpen. Instead, Terry watched Melky Cabrera end the evening with a catchable fly ball to center field that Mike Aviles, the utility infielder, could not track down. In the end, Mike Aviles not catching that ball did not matter as, with only one out, Tyler Flowers would have easily scored anyway. But, it did seem like a fitting end to the game.
I do not anticipate that I will lay blame for many losses on Terry Francona. I do believe that it is the responsibility of the players to execute the decisions of the manager. However, I also believe that it is the responsibility of the manager to put his players in positions where they can succeed. I just do not believe he did such on this particular Monday night, which ended up wasting another great starting pitching performance.
Key Moments of the Game
Bottom of 1st, runners on 1st and 2nd, 1 out: Trevor Bauer did not have great control in this particular game, but he struck out Adam LaRoche and was able to get Avisail Garcia to harmlessly ground out to Jose Ramirez to end this initial threat.
Top of 2nd: Eight of the first ten Indians batters would record outs, but one of the two hits gave the Indians the early lead. Thank you, Ryan Raburn.
Top of 2nd, runner on 1st, 2 outs: Michael Brantley delivered a two out RBI by hitting a line drive into the right field corner that allowed Mike Aviles to get all the way home. Unfortunately, Carlos Santana stranded Michael Brantley on third by striking out to end the inning.
Bottom of 3rd, runners on 1st and 2nd, 0 outs: Trevor Bauer was able to get Melky Cabrera to hit a grounder straight to Lonnie Chisenhall who helped start the 5-4-3 double play that required instant replay to confirm. And, Bauer completed the inning getting Jose Abreu to hit a harmless infield pop fly to Jose Ramirez.
Bottom of 4th, runner on 2nd, 2 outs: Trevor Bauer got himself out of another situation with RISP by striking out Alexei Ramirez.
Top of 5th: The Indians were in the middle of another stretch where nine of eleven batters would record outs. However, one of the two hits extended the lead. Thank you, Brett Hayes.
Top of 6th, runners on 1st and 2nd, 1 out: Lonnie Chisenhall was at least able to advance Ryan Raburn, but Brett Hayes used up his good swing for the night in the fifth, so the inning ended on a harmless pop fly.
Bottom of 9th: The Cody Allen collapse is already detailed above, so here is a summary. After striking out Adam LaRoche, Cody Allen allowed seven straight hitters to reach base. One was a walk and each of the six hits found their way to the outfield (quite quickly).
Key Moment Scorecard:
Chicago White Sox: 2
Cleveland Indians: 6
Old Friends; Help or Haunt
J.B. Shuck: Pinch hit in the seventh and promptly ended the inning. Help
Zach Putnam: Only pitched to David Murphy and promptly ended the inning. Haunt
The Nine
Jason Kipnis: Jason spent the day making fart jokes and becoming frustrated that the local media was creating stories from those fart jokes. He spent the night continuing his frustrating start of the season hitting.
Mike Aviles: I do not think it is wise to hit Mike Aviles second in the order, but he delivered on Monday with two hits and a walk.
Michael Brantley: Even in his early season struggles, he has usually had good at bats, but Michael did not look good swinging the bat. I would worry about his back, but he did look fine stretching his double to get to third base on the throw home.
Carlos Santana: With Kipnis, Brantley, Bourn, and Santana all struggling, the offense has to be carried by players like Ryan Raburn and Brett Hayes. That strategy is not going to work. Carlos was patient, as always, but had an 0-for-4 day.
Ryan Raburn: Ryan had the same 2-for-3 day with a walk that Mike Aviles had except one of his hits cleared the fence.
Jerry Sands: He at least reached base with a walk in three at bats.
David Murphy: Murphy’s OBP is threatening to drop below the Mendoza line.
Lonnie Chisenhall: After some initial optimism at the plate, he has struggled and had an 0-for-4 day despite his past success against John Danks. The good news is that he has been acceptable in the field so far.
Brett Hayes: He was put in a tough spot after Yan Gomes injury. He did a relatively good job framing pitches, while blocking most of Bauer’s effective wildness on the night. The home run was obviously a nice moment as well.
Jose Ramirez: Jose is also threatening to see his OBP drop below the Mendoza line. His defense has been relatively good, but it also has not been the dominant force that it was in the second half of 2014.
The Arms
Trevor Bauer: He got himself into and out of trouble all night. The end result was another great performance.
Nick Hagadone: Nick did a nice job working around a walk before handing the ball over to Bryan Shaw.
Bryan Shaw: Came in and got the strike out he was looking to get.
Cody Allen: Any outing that sees Cody Allen with 30 pitches is going to be a horrific outing.
- Especially when they have such a great utility outfielder in Columbus in Tyler Holt. [↩]
69 Comments
But, da** it feels good to be a gangster.
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Now you got it!
Just keep grindin’
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I know from previous experience that you and I simply won’t see eye to eye on this issue, which is absolutely fine. And I respect your take on it all. I’ll simply toss this out there and leave it at that.
Cavs fans are a bad example this year, as many of us were beyond apoplectic from the jump at any sign of not going 82-0. Because expectations were sky-high. But the Cavs had proven talent and their conference was considered largely weak, so personally I wasn’t in that boat. 82 games is a long time. Browns fans, meanwhile, are so used to the team stumbling out of the gate that early wins are treated as cause for jubilation, especially with a team many were expected to be in the 4-6 win range or worse. The way of a Browns fan is resignation, not panic and/or intense concern.
The Tribe, by contrast, came in with big (over-inflated? unreasonable?) expectations, fed by national praise (which is like a drug to fans, especially Cleveland fans). They did so with a roster full of POTENTIAL–guys who have shown glimpses or had “a” good season, but very little in terms of PROVEN quality. They did so with a schedule front-loaded with critical division games, which would make early stumbles all the more damaging to positioning themselves for even the play-in game down the road, let alone a division crown. And they’ve responded by wasting quality effort after quality effort from the guys we are leaning on the most, guys who may or may not be able to sustain those efforts for an entire season. Carlos Carrasco showed us last week how fine a line it can be in terms of even being available for an entire season. 162 is certainly plenty of games and time, sure. But this team is doing itself no favors in terms of the sort of turnaround they’ll need to legitimately compete come September and October. What we did late in the season two years ago is NOT reasonable to expect year in and year out. It was a fluke–a beautiful, exciting, memorable experience, but a fluke nonetheless. At some point, a team has to learn to handle its business before things become do or die. And losing like this now just makes it all the more likely we end up scrambling at the end.
I’m not saying abandon all hope. We could be an inning away from getting the momentum we need to get back on track, and I’ll be watching and hoping we are. But I won’t pretend not to be concerned and frustrated, or that this all means less because of where we are on the calendar.
And under that idea, a lot of things may mean less than nothing in October, and we’re not going to piss and moan so much about every single one, are we?
Yes, losses are bad, and wins are better. Which is all this boils down to. Why we need to add all this narrative and chicken little about bad play in April that we don’t get in June is where we disagree.
What we did late in 2013 is all a bunch of narrative-adding too. And of course, if we played the easiest part of our 2013 schedule in April instead of September, the narrative about that season would be different too.
We’re all on the same page – just win baby.
Stuff-wise, from this amateur scouting eye, I don’t think Allen didn’t have it. He was hitting 96, and throwing the curve for strikes (2/3rds of his pitches were strikes in total). But yes, you have to at least be considering a move.
Okay. You lost me. I have no idea what you’re talking about.
He had the velocity but his command was not there. I remember seeing him spiking his curves way in front of the plate. The only one I saw for a strike was hung and ripped for a hit. Also had trouble hitting any corners with the fastball.
Here is the strange thing about the expectations.
The guys who had the potential without “proven” would probably be listed as Carrasco, Bauer, Salazar, McAllister, House, R.Perez, J.Ramirez, L.Chisenhall.
The guys who we are pretty sure we know “who they are” would be list as C.Santana, M.Brantley, C.Kluber, J.Kipnis, Y.Gomes, M.Bourn,
Other than Kluber, the list of known commodities has performed even worse than the unknown commodities thus far.
God bless the poor guys that have to follow this team.
Again, 20 of 30 pitches went for strikes. 6 of 12 curves went for strikes as well. Obviously more corners are better than fewer, but I’m not seeing much more lack of command than usual from Allen, who has always thrown less than half his pitches in the zone.
You can say anything you want “may” mean something or less than nothing, or any other range of vague terms.
Browns articles are to the left; this is a Tribe post. Sorry you got lost.
It’s either a leg thing, or a spiritual thing, or a psychological thing, or a…. heartattack.
No I meant the Indians
Not an ideal recipe for success unless those unknowns are setting the world on fire. With the exception of Bauer, they are not. I’m confident that our knowns can get back to doing their thing, but it would be great if that happened sooner rather than later.
nobody used heart attack?
Ah Brody…