‘Staches and Strikeouts

The starters don’t stop, the Kipnis conundrum, and the seven-run sweep

They won’t die folks. The Cleveland Indians, the team that most of you forget about the first Sunday after Labor Day every year, is one resilient bunch. Losing three of four – two in extremely brutal fashion – to the Detroit Tigers earlier in the week made many in this town thinking the Tribe was all but done. But as they have done so many times this season, they put it all in their rear view mirror and went right back out and swept the Chicago White Sox and kept the pressure on the Tigers and the Seattle Mariners, who sit three and a half games in front for the second AL Wild Card. Yes, the two tough losses to the Tigers are a four game swing that is a killer, but the Tribe knows what they have to do; keep on winning.

There is only one place to start when discussing the three-game sweep of the South Siders; the absolutely incredible starting rotation. In all honesty, I feel as though I sound like broken record, but for the last month plus, the Tribe Five has CARRIED the team. It is an undeniable fact. The offense certainly isn’t winning them many games. Over the weekend, the Indians bats managed to push across just seven runs. Seven. Yet they won all three games. It is incredible. You know what else is incredible? The run this rotation is currently on.

It all got started Friday night with a matchup of lefties. The Sox sent their ace Chris Sale out to keep the Indians down. Manager Terry Francona needed his lefty T.J. House to just give his team a chance to win. Runs were going to be scarce considering just how good Sale has been. His 2.09 ERA trails just Clayton Kershaw’s for the best in all of Baseball. It was no surprise that the Tribe scratched just one run on five hits across and a walk in six innings. The thing that did surprise many was that House went toe to toe with Sale and didn’t back down. He even did one better by going seven innings of one run ball, striking out seven without a walk while scattering seven hits.

“You just have to limit mistakes,” said House. “A guy like Sale is going to go out there and not give up a lot of runs. You just try to match him pitch for pitch and inning for inning, just try to keep the team in the game.”

Once the game became a battle of the pens, the advantage was clearly with the Indians, who won it in the 10th on a walk-off single from the freshly activated pinch hitter David Murphy (more on him later).

Saturday night was Corey Kluber’s turn. The Indians top dog had been human of late, allowing an uncharacteristic 11 earned runs in his last 16 innings, spanning three starts – all Tribe losses. He was very curt with the media last week when he was asked if he was wearing down, considering his career high in innings pitched. It was more mechanical than physical. Kluber said he felt great physically and Saturday he showed he was not lying.

Corey was back to his dominant self in a complete game five hit, eight strikeout, no walk 3-1 win. The only run he gave up was unearned. The statement was made; Kluber is ready for the final month stretch drive to October.

“I was getting a little too closed off the last few starts,” said Kluber. “It just wasn’t allowing me to quite get the ball where I wanted to glove side. So we just worked on my direction during my bullpen. It was a pretty easy adjustment. It wasn’t anything major. It took maybe a handful of pitches to get that feeling back to what we were looking for. We went out there tonight and it wasn’t like I was searching or anything. It felt normal and comfortable.”

Kluber didn’t become the pitcher of record until the seventh when Jose Ramirez, rapidly becoming one of the more dependable hitters in the lineup, tripled in Michael Bourn to break the 1-1 tie. Michael Brantley followed with an RBI single off of ex-Tribe farmhand Zach Putnam. That extra two runs were all Kluber needed as the Sox never threatened the rest of the way. Sunday would be a day to go for the sweep, and Kluber knew exactly what needed to be done.

“The only choice we have right now is to try to put the past behind us and focus on each game as itself. You just go out there and try to win every night. Whatever happened the night before — whether it was a win or a loss — it doesn’t have any bearing on what’s going to happen tonight,” he said.

The run of sensational starting pitching didn’t end Saturday night. With the sweep on the line, Carlos Carrasco took the ball and went right at the Chicago hitters. He challenged them with his fastball all day long. While the Cleveland Football team spent the 1:00-2:30 timeslot writing a book on how not to step up in a big game, Carrasco was putting on a clinic at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.

At what point do we stop calling this a fluke and start referring to it as “the real thing?” They say once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a trend. Then what do you say about six times in a row? Because that is where we are with Carrasco at this point. The guy went from rotation castoff, to long man, to power arm trusted reliever, to the guy who would probably start game two of a playoff series is Francona could align his rotation the way he wanted.

“I’ll tell you what, it’s been so nice,” Francona said of Carrasco’s resurgence. “You put a guy in the rotation and you certainly hope for the best, but my goodness. He looks so strong.”

With the sweep on the line, all Carrasco did was head into the ninth with a two-hit shutout working. Francona give him the chance to finish, but he gave up two hits in the ninth, bringing the winning run to the plate, so Tito turned to closer Cody Allen to get the final out, which he did, preserving the 2-0 win for Carrasco. Did he want a chance to finish? Of course he did, but even Carlos admitted after the game “I think he (Francona) made the right move.

Think Carrasco’s emergence has been big? This is like getting a top of the rotation pitcher at the trade deadline for absolutely nothing. Just check these numbers out:

Carrasco since rejoining @Indians rotation: 38.2IP, 3ER (0.70ERA), 42 #whiff, 4BB. Simply dominating.

— Cleveland Indians (@Indians) September 7, 2014

House, Kluber, and Carrasco pitched a combined 24.2 innings this weekend and gave up just one earned run while striking out 23 without issuing a single free pass. What we are seeing just doesn’t happen, folks. This is legendary kind of stuff. Imagine if the Tribe teams in the mid to late 90’s had this kind of pitching. This current stretch is absolutely astounding. Here are more fun numbers!

#Indians SP, last 30 days: ERA: 2.07 (1st) FIP: 2.71 (1st) xFIP: 3.03 (1st) K%: 25.6 (1st) HR/9: 0.46 (2nd) BAA: .221 (3rd) — August Fagerstrom (@AugustF_ABJ) September 7, 2014

#Indians rotation last 26 games: 1.83 ERA (33 ER in 161.2 innings) #PitchingWinsChampionships— Jim Berdysz (@JBirdman27) September 7, 2014

Now this pitching is great and all, but the offense continues to inch across at a turtle-like pace. As I said before, they won three games despite scoring just seven runs. At this point, I just don’t understand why anyone would pitch to Michael Brantley and Carlos Santana. Outside of Yan Gomes and Jose Ramirez, the Indians are getting next to nothing from whoever else rounds out the lineup with these four.

The Sox pitching staff after Sale is not exactly the Atlanta Braves of 1995. Yet all weekend long, pushing runs across was an extreme struggle. You know it is bad when you play an extra inning game where there were only three at-bats with runners in scoring position. Luckily, both of those hits were responsible for the two runs scored.

My frustration level with Jason Kipnis has reached its official peak. He was given a much needed night off Friday, but entered the game in the eighth inning as a pinch hitter where he grounded out to the pitcher. The stage was all set for him to be the hero in the 10th inning. Gomes led off the inning with a triple off the wall in left. Sox skipper Robin Ventura then intentionally walked the next two batters to get to Kipnis and brought in a lefty to do so.

I know Kipnis has been fighting with the oblique injury that sidelined him for a month earlier in the year, but he looked heavy coming into the season and that may have had something to do with the injury itself. Since his return Kipnis has been a shell of the guy who played his way onto the All-Star team in 2013. The break last season is really where his game began to take a nose dive. The drop off in performance is starting to mirror that of old friend Asdrubal Cabrera, who seemed to thrive in two All-Star first halves and began a fortuitous decline that eventually led him to being dealt to Washington. His defense is slipping and his at-bats are not exactly awe inspiring.

Friday night’s bases loaded, nobody out AB was exhibit A. Facing lefty Eric Surkamp, Kipnis jumped out in front 3-1. There was nowhere to put him and a walk ends the game. As bad as Jason has been struggling, one would think that he would be taking on anything that wasn’t straight down the middle. Surkamp’s next pitch was wide of the zone, yet Kipnis swung anyways and missed. With the count now full, he still had the advantage. Kip for a second time swung at ball four and was called out on strikes. Murphy bailed him out with a pinch hit walk-off single.

I hope that I am wrong about Kipnis and that 2014 is just a lost year, but I have real concerns that the six-year, $52.5 million extension he signed this offseason could be a mistake. The future up the middle for the Indians could easily be Ramirez (a natural second baseman) and top prospect Francisco Lindor. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Kipnis ended up back in the outfield at some point, the position he played at Arizona State.

Meanwhile Ramirez just keeps on raking. My favorite Jose stat thought is that he now leads the AL in sac bunts and he has played in 41 games! Tito loves that bunt doesn’t he? Saturday Ramirez was the hitting star in a sea of weak bats. He had three hits including a seventh inning RBI triple that broke a 1-1 tie. The 21-year old is hitting .311 (28-90) with seven sac bunts, seven steals, 12 runs scored, and nine RBIs. Translation: he is getting things done in the two hole for Francona.

The return of Murphy, who was one of the AL leaders in hitting with runners in scoring position, should help the club during the final three weeks of the season. Former LA Angel and Ohio State Buckeye J.B. Shuck was also added for additional pop. Essentially Shuck will take over the Chris Dickerson role for now. Dickerson remains on the roster and will mostly be used as an extra, but they have probably gotten all the mileage they can out of him. Ryan Raburn has also been activated from the DL, but I am not holding out hope that he will suddenly be able to turn it out after a miserable season.

One thing is for sure, if the starters keep pitching the way they have over the past month, anything is possible. Their margin for error is still slim, but the time is now to strike. After a makeup game tomorrow afternoon with the Los Angeles Angels at Progressive Field (Danny Salazar vs. Jered Weaver), the Minnesota Twins come to town for three games, followed by a trip season making or breaking 10 game trip to Detroit (three), Houston (four), and Minnesota (three).

“We’re running out of months,” Francona said. “Not days, but months. So, we need to make up some ground. I don’t know if you can go into a series thinking about a sweep, because I don’t think that’s a very productive way to play, but now that it’s over, it certainly helps. Now, it makes tomorrow that much bigger.”

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(AP Photo/Mark Duncan)