C-Cap Weekend Recap: One-Hitsville, USA

One week after drubbing the Twins to the tune of 34 runs in a three game series in Cleveland, the increasingly confident Indians traveled to Minneapolis for an encore performance and wound up with more of a disappointing, Caddyshack II style sequel. With Jason Kipnis and Michael Brantley out of the lineup — à la Bill Murray and Rodney Dangerfield — the hits came few and far between, as the Tribe (54-62) dropped two of three to the Twinkies, wasting a couple more excellent pitching performances in the process. Turns out Abraham Almonte might not be the second coming of Willie Mays, after all.

In fairness, there was a little residual win streak magic still in the air for the series opener on Friday night, as Corey Kluber picked up where he left off the previous Sunday, baffling Minnesota en route to a one-hitter and a second straight complete game victory. In three starts against the Twins this year, Kluber is 2-0 with four runs allowed across 26 innings.

It’s no news flash that the one consistent positive narrative from the 2015 Indians season has been the young rotation — save for the garbage fire that’s been the No. 5 spot. But sometimes, even after acknowledging and admiring the efforts of Kluber, Salazar, Carrasco, and Bauer week after week, it’s still hard to tune out the team’s overriding frequency of frustration, dejection, and hopelessness (often unapologetically expressed by the voice of the Indians himself, Tom Hamilton). To counter this, the C-Cap Recap will take a brief respite from the uncomfortable confines of the “right now” to appreciate the Indians in a more historical context.

The 2015 Cleveland Indians are just the third team in MLB history to post 5 games of 1 or 0 hits allowed. No team has ever had six such games, and Cleveland has six weeks left to go for it. What makes this doubly impressive is that ALL FOUR of the primary starters have contributed to this record, with Kluber notching a pair.

April 9 / Indians 5, Astros 1: Trevor Bauer, Kyle Crockett, Scott Atchison, & Nick Hagadone
(Bauer goes 6 hitless in season debut, Hagadone allows first Astros hit with one out in 9th)

May 13 / Indians 2, Cardinals 0: Corey Kluber and Cody Allen
(Kluber strikes out 18 in 8 innings, allows lone hit with 2 outs in 7th)

July 1 / Indians 8, Rays 1: Carlos Carrasco and Austin Adams
(Carrasco gets within one strike of no-no)

July 31 / Indians 2, A’s 1: Danny Salazar and Cody Allen
(Salazar allows one single in 3rd)

August 14 / Indians 6, Twins 1: Corey Kluber
(Kluber allows solo homer to Joe Mauer in 4th)

Only one other team since 1914 has posted five one-hitters in a season. And weirdly enough, the 1964 Baltimore Orioles also had four different starting pitchers accomplish the feat: Dave McNally, Frank Bertaina, Milt Pappas, and Wally Bunker twice. The 1914 White Sox had four one-hitters and one completed no-no, the latter coming from a guy named Joe Benz. He got the job done, naturally, against the Cleveland Naps.

The only previous time Cleveland had four games in one season allowing one hit or less was 1947. Don Black threw a no-hitter, Al Gettel had a one-hitter, and Bob Feller had a pair of one-hitters.

Now perhaps you’re of the opinion that a one-hitter is really just a game in which a pitcher almost did something historic, only to narrowly fail. Maybe you also think stats like this are completely meaningless except as tools for blowhard geek journalists to use when all other relevant topics have been exhausted during the stretch run of a lost season. That’s fine. Be that guy. Take joy in nothing.

Weekend Re-Capping

Friday:
Indians 6, Twins 1
W: Corey Kluber (8-12), L: Trevor May (8-8)
Boxscore Excerpt: Corey Kluber | 9 IP, 1 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 7 K

With Kluber’s exploits pretty well covered, and with virtually no offensive highlight to speak of on Saturday and Sunday, we might as celebrate a productive evening for the Tribe bats on Friday, as Francisco Lindor picked up the slack for the missing Kipnis (shoulder) and Brantley (shoulder) with another three-hit effort. If we ever do see the proper starting lineup of Kip, Lindor, and Smooth again, it will represent one of the best first thirds of a lineup in baseball. As for the other six guys… that situation is a tad less encouraging. But there was reason for optimism on this night, at least, as Gio Urshela broke out of a swoon with two hits and a homer, and Lonnie Chisenhall continued his strong post-recall effort with a 3-for-4 night. Mike Aviles added three hits of his own and Almonte singled and tripled as the Indians knocked around Trevor May and a string of obscure middle relievers on their way to their fifth win in six games.

Saturday: Twins 4, Indians 1 W: Tyler Duffey (1-1), L: Josh Tomlin (0-1) Boxscore Excerpt: Josh Tomlin | 6.1 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 0 BB, 5 K It once seemed like roughly a dozen candidates had surpassed Josh Tomlin on the Indians fifth starter depth chart, but with Cody Anderson at least temporarily going the way of TJ House, Bruce Chen, and Shaun Marcum, lo and behold, the Little Cowboy was finally back on the hill on Saturday for his first start since September of last year. And he looked good, too—albeit in classic Tomlinesque form: great command of his pitches (0 walks), a few early Ks, then the obligatory back-to-back home runs in the fifth. Meanwhile, the Twins’ Tyler Duffey — making the second start of his big league career — took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, mercifully broken up by a Lindor double. Francisco had two of the Indians’ eventual four knocks on the night, as the team’s only semi-rally came in the ninth when Roberto Perez scored Carlos Santana on a single. By then, Bryan Shaw had already put things out of reach with an eighth inning gopher ball to Brian Dozier. Silver lining: Tomlin did pitch well. After six years, though, he is a known quantity, and a distant longshot to secure the fifth spot beyond the next few weeks.

Sunday
Twins 4, Indians 1
W: Tommy Milone (6-3), L: Carlos Carrasco (11-9), S: Glen Perkins (31)
Boxscore Excerpt: Carlos Carrasco | 3-4, 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 H, 3 BB, 7 K

An Abraham Almonte sacrifice fly in the second inning gave the Indians a 1-0 lead. Minnesota answered with a two-run Kurt Suzuki single in the bottom of the second. Carrasco was solid the rest of the way, but like Tomlin, his fate was sealed by his scuffling offense and some less-than-helpful eighth inning relief work (this time it was Zach McAllister giving up a late homerun to Trevor Plouffe). The Indians had put together a two-out rally in the eighth inning themselves, but Tito Francona was forced to use Ryan Raburn in a rare pinch-hit spot against a right-handed pitcher (Kevin Jepsen), as Chris Johnson was unavailable for the day with a “severe spider bite.” Can’t make this stuff up, folks. Raburn whiffed, leaving the tying run in scoring position.

The Twins now have three players with 17 or more homeruns. Brandon Moss still leads the Tribe with 15. Carlos Santana, having a career worst power year, leads the active roster with 12. It looks very likely the Indians will finish the season without a 20 HR man for the second time in three years (Santana led the team with 18 in 2012). Prior to that, you have to go back to 1983 to find a Cleveland roster so devoid of long distance threats, as Andre Thornton and Gorman Thomas shared the team lead that year with 17 HR each.