Ball Played: Indians RISP-phobia

The Cleveland Indians have had their share of offensive frustration in 2015. Despite a middle of the pack ranking in runs per game¹ , it has often seemed like the Indians have let many run scoring opportunities go to waste. No game epitomized that frustration more than the Wednesday night’s against the Seattle Mariners, in which the Indians went 1-for-17 with RISP while losing to the Mariners 9-3.

Whether or not such failures are merely due to luck or if they speak to  systemic issues, it is important to level-set the expectations of what the Indians should be doing in these situations as a function of the league on a whole. In all combined circumstances, the Indians find themselves nearly in line with the MLB average on offense in runs scored, batting average, on base percentage² , and slugging percentage.

With RISP, MLB averages barely move off their normal rate. It is statistically expected that those situations will level out given a large enough sample size, and the MLB average holds true to this theory. However, the Cleveland Indians drop 32 points in batting average, 13 points in on-base percentage, and 51 points in slugging percentage with runners in scoring position.

With RISP and two outs, the MLB averages do fall to some degree³ . However, the Cleveland Indians averages fall off a cliff as seen in the below table.

There is not much to be done about the issue. The hope is that it is truly poor fortune and that over the long season things will even out, but there are always outliers in any statistical analysis and the Indians thus far are on the wrong extreme of this one.

Key Moments of the Game

1-for-17 w/ RISP:

As discussed above, the Indians had plenty of chances to score runs on Wednesday and they started off with some early opportunities lost and continued through the game. Here are all the grim details.

1st Inning, Carlos Santana on 2nd, 1 out: Michael Brantley grounded out to first base, moving Santana to third base. Brandon Moss flied out to center.

2nd Inning, Yan Gomes on 3rd, Zach Walters on 2nd, 1 out: Bourn looked silly on a strikeout followed by Mike Aviles popping out to the catcher, Mike Zunino.

3rd Inning, Michael Brantley on 2nd, 2 outs: Moss strikeout.

4th Inning, David Murphy on 2nd, Yan Gomes on 1st, 0 outs: Zach Walters strikeout. Michael Bourn should have grounded into a double play, but was saved when Taijuan Walker took the throw for the back end of the play off of his wrist, which allowed Michael Bourn to be safe at first and David Murphy to score an unearned run. Mike Aviles even singled Michael Bourn over from first to third, but Jason Kipnis ended the inning with a harmless groundout.

5th Inning, Carlos Santana on 2nd, Brandon Moss on 1st, 1 out: Murphy strikeout. Yan Gomes groundout.

8th Inning, Brandon Moss on 3rd, David Murphy on 1st, 0 outs: Yan Gomes hits an infield fly for the first out. Zach Walters grounds out to first for the second out (though it scored Moss), and Michael Bourn flies to center field to end the inning. The Indians scored a run, but it was an incredibly inefficient usage of the situation.

9th Inning, Mike Aviles on 3rd, Jason Kipnis on 2nd, 0 outs: Santana strikeout. Giovanny Urshela grounded out (though it scored Aviles). Brandon Moss with an infield fly to end the game.

Bauer has his own outage:

The game started off well enough as Trevor Bauer managed three strikeouts in the first two innings, while only giving up one hit (a line drive double that made it to the left field wall from Austin Jackson).

However, things fell apart in the third inning as Bauer and Yan Gomes could not get the home plate umpire to give them any call on the corner. Yan was doing well framing the pitches, but pitch after pitch that looked to be a strike was called a ball, and Bauer could not adjust to the shrunken strike zone. Bauer walked the bases loaded, though he did get Brad Miller and Logan Morrison to fly out. Unlike the Indians, Kyle Seager took advantage of a two-out run-scoring opportunity as he blasted the ball for a grand slam.

The control issues continued in the fourth inning as Bauer walked Brad Miller while allowing Dustin Ackley and Logan Morrison to get good swings on the ball, and two more runs scored⁴ . Curiously, Terry Francona allowed Bauer to face Austin Jackson, who he struck out, but Tito sent in Nick Hagadone to face Robinson Cano, who also struck out.

The damage was done as Trevor Bauer had thrown 86 pitches in less than four innings of work, by which point the Mariners were up 6-0.

Key Moment Scorecard:
Seattle Mariners: 2
Cleveland Indians: 0

Old Friends; Help or Haunt

Maybe we can sign Russell Branyan just to trade him to the Mariners (again).

The Nine

Note: Eight of the nine starters had hits on Wednesday. Four of those starters had multiple hits. However, only two earned runs were scored. The RISP numbers above were for the team on a whole, so it might be instructive to look at the individual players, but please note the as the sample sizes get smaller, the results can be more easily skewed.

Jason Kipnis:
0-for-1 w/ RISP
2015 slash line: .333/.410/.511
2015 RISP slash: .318/.411/.477

Carlos Santana:
0-for-1 w/ RISP
2015 slash line: .231/.381/.385
2015 RISP slash: .220/.380/.288

Michael Brantley:
0-for-1 w/ RISP
2015 slash line: .300/.379/.458
2015 RISP slash: .322/.419/.458

Brandon Moss:
0-for-3 w/ RISP
2015 slash line: .249/.321/.477
2015 RISP slash: .200/.247/.369

David Murphy:
1-for-2 w/ RISP
2015 slash line: .331/.369/.471
2015 RISP slash: .355/.400/.484

Yan Gomes*:
0-for-2 w/ RISP
2015 slash line: .239/.257/.358
2015 RISP slash: .067/.167/.067
*only 67 AB in 2015

Zach Walters*:
0-for-2 w/ RISP
2015 slash line: .095/.095/.095
2015 RISP slash: .167/.167/.167
*only 21 AB in 2015

Michael Bourn:
0-for-3 w/ RISP
2015 slash line: .243/.315/.299
2015 RISP slash: .190/.300/.262

Mike Aviles:
0-for-1 w/ RISP
2015 slash line: .279/.331/.405
2015 RISP slash: .133/.263/.133

The Arms

Trevor Bauer: Only 49 of his 86 pitches were strikes as he walked five batters, and allowed four hits, including the Seager grand slam. Not a good day for Bauer.

Nick Hagadone: Hagadone was dealing. His pitches had great movement and the Mariners did not have an answer for him as he quickly sat down four straight Seattle batters (two on strikeouts).

Austin Adams: Adams was not good, but he was not helped out by the defense in this game either. Aviles threw the ball away to allow Cano to reach base, then Michael Bourn dove at a ball hit by Seager and came up comically short, which scored Cano. Seth Smith removed the defense from the equation by knocking one off the Sugardale Dollar Dog sign just below the yellow tape for a double. Another hard shot directly off the right field wall from Mark Trumbo scored the last Mariner run on the evening, though Moss did a nice job holding it to a single.

Ryan Webb: Webb pitched to contact, though he did get Rickie Weeks on strikes. The balls were hit hard, but the defense made the plays for Webb.

Bryan Shaw: With the game mostly decided, the home plate umpire continued to have his consistent but shrunken strike zone and Shaw struggled finding it. It took 23 pitches that included two walks, but Shaw did manage to get through the ninth unscathed.

1. And scoring more than the Detroit Tigers [↩]
2. Actually fifth in MLB, as OBP is a team strength. [↩]
3. Though it is important to note that averages are expected to fall some with two outs and runners on, as it is slightly harder to achieve a hit in that circumstance. [↩]
4. Michael Bourn had some adventures picking the ball up, which gave the second runner time to score. [↩]