Kevin Love is very good, but on-off stats can be very misleading: WFNY Stats & Info
April 28, 2015Cavs suspensions, Browns draft info and more – WFNY Podcast – 2015-04-27
April 28, 2015Corey Kluber entered the night with 495 career strikeouts and it was largely expected that he would record number 500 on Monday night. The Kansas City Royals are the most difficult team in MLB to strike out, however, and it took Corey until the sixth inning to achieve that 500th strikeout when he froze Lorenzo Cain. Unfortunately, even that moment of triumph was brief as three batters later Alex Gordon doubled home Eric Hosmer for what ended up being the game winning run. The Royals defeated the Cleveland Indians 6-2, leaving the Tribe winless in all five of Kluber’s April starts.
The Indians entered the game Monday night as one of the most patient teams at the plate. As a team, they averaged 3.9 pitches per plate appearance (P/PA)1 , which has them ranked fifth in all of MLB. Carlos Santana leads the team among those with enough qualified at bats (and ranked sixth in MLB) taking 4.4 P/PA, and he has utilized that patience to achieve an OBP of .364. Brandon Moss is another patient hitter in the lineup taking 4.12 P/PA, but he has struggled to turn that patience into anything useful outside of April Friday night games in Detroit.
However, all of that patience has not been helping much, as the Indians have struggled as a team to score runs. They came into Monday averaging 3.76 runs per game, which was ranked 23rd in MLB. When that patience is combined with the lack of scoring runs, it can be tabulated that the Indians actually only score a run every 45 pitches. Only the San Francisco Giants (one run every 48 pitches) and the Philadelphia Phillies (every 50 pitches) make their fans watch more pitches per run.
In particular, patience may not be considered a virtue against the Kansas City Royals as they have arguably the best bullpen in MLB. In fact, the Royals’ bullpen ERA for 2015 entered Monday night at 0.782 . That number got even better during the game as the Royals bullpen retired twelve of the final thirteen batters in the game, lowering their ERA to 0.73. Only a Jason Kipnis double in the bottom of the seventh stopped the Indians from being completely embarrassed. The Indians bullpen has held a respectable line and now has a 3.65/3.88 ERA/FIP, but they are no Royals bullpen.
Keys of the Game
Team Building over the past Decade: The Kansas City Royals were quite bad for quite a long time. They finally started building a team over the past decade and made an organizational decision to favor athleticism, defense, and speed among position players. The end result has been that the Royals are a team that dictates the game through their defense. Teams know going in that the range in the outfield covered by Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain, and Jarrod Dyson includes nearly every blade of grass. The infield has multiple Gold Glove winners in Eric Hosmer at first base and Salvador Perez at catcher, with each of the other fielders plenty capable of good defense as well.
Three errors and general malaise for Indians defense: Jason Kipnis set the stage for the rest of the night when he allowed Eric Hosmer to reach first base on what appeared to be an attempted throw to the backstop. Corey Kluber was able to escape and Kipnis somewhat redeemed himself when Kendrys Morales hit one back to Jason to end the threat, but that was just the beginning.
The Royals scored their first run in the second inning after Michael Bourn gave up on a long fly ball from Salvador Perez that wound up being a ground rule double3, and Jose Ramirez misplayed a grounder off of his wrist behind a diving Mike Aviles at third base. Kluber struck out Alcides Escobar to end the inning, but not until after Jarrod Dyson beat a decent throw to steal second base and stole third base uncontested.
While the Indians defense was noticeably worse than the Royals throughout the game, but managed to avoid any official errors until the wheels completely fell off in the seventh. Kluber had already allowed Dyson to get on base and he used his great speed to once again steal third. Jarrod eventually scored when Mike Moustakas fouled off four straight payoff pitches from Kluber before pushing a single into left field4. Nick Hagadone then relieved Kluber and Mike Aviles added to the defensive woes on the night by botching a Morales hit, which helped the Royals score an extra two runs in the inning.
Third time through the Indians lineup: For a brief moment in the game, it seemed as if the Indians had life. Jason Vargas entered the fifth inning needing to get through the Indians lineup a third time and whatever advantages were to be obtained by forcing Vargas into over 80 pitches in the first four innings seemed to be coming to fruition as Jason Kipnis lined a hard shot to right that barely stayed in the field of play5 . Next, Mike Aviles turned hard into an inside pitch that he took over the left field wall. Even Alex Gordon had to just watch.
Battle of the Bullpens: As mentioned above, the Royals bullpen dominated the Indians. Ryan Madsen, Franklin Morales, Kelvin Herrera, and Wade Davis combined to work quickly through the last four innings.
The Indians bullpen largely did its job as Nick Hagadone struck out Hosmer and should have gotten out of the seventh for Corey if not for the Aviles error. Zach McAllister and Marc Rzepczynski both had good outings as well, but it was too late.
Key Moment Scorecard:
Kansas City Royals: 3
Cleveland Indians: 0
Old Friends; Help or Haunt
The Royals are largely built from within their own system and do not have as many outside players as many teams the Indians will face this season.
The Nine
Jason Kipnis: A strong day at the plate at least. He had a good approach and it paid off with a 2-for-4 day including the hardest hit of the night.
Mike Aviles: Like Jason, he had a nice day at the plate despite his poor day in the field. He was patient drawing two walks and helping the Indians actually score runs with their first home run in Progressive Field this season.
Michael Brantley: He was patient, but had trouble getting solid contact. Still, he got on base twice with walks by letting Vargas beat himself.
Carlos Santana: Carlos had opportunities to help the Indians score runs, but failed to do so twice during his 0-for-4 night.
Ryan Raburn: Ryan continued his hard contact for the season, but he could not find a place for the ball to land against the strong Royals defense.
David Murphy: Pinch hit for Raburn and managed a weak ground out and a strikeout.
Jerry Sands: He had a non-descript night to say the least.
Brandon Moss: Pinch hit for Sands and promptly struck out.
Roberto Perez: He hit two of the three true outcomes by striking out twice and walking once.
Lonnie Chisenhall: Lonnie came in to pinch hit and promptly struck out.
Michael Bourn: Michael continues to struggle at the plate. Despite him getting one of the four Indians hits, he just looks lost at the plate right now.
Jose Ramirez: Jose has been completely worthless with a bat in his hands, which makes his defensive regression this year seem all that much worse.
The Arms
Corey Kluber: He has been good, but not dominating this season. The difference between his 4.24 ERA and 2.52 FIP demonstrates the struggles the defense has had behind him during his starts. Unfortunately, he has had some rotten luck there and the team can hopefully rally behind him in future outings.
Bullpen: covered above.
- Boosted by non-qualifiers Brett Hayes and Ryan Raburn who have taken 4.86 and 4.73 P/PA respectively and rank No. 4 and 5 in MLB for anyone who has swung the bat in 2015. Mike Aviles and Roberto Perez are close to qualifying in at bats and have 4.46 and 4.44 P/PA respectively, good for No. 16 and 17 including those non-qualifiers. [↩]
- Surprise! That number leads MLB. [↩]
- It appeared to me he took a bad path to the ball, then trotted at the end hoping to play if off the wall. [↩]
- Lonnie Chisenhall can take note here. He is great at staying alive, but less great at taking advantage of the extra opportunities. [↩]
- Of course, the Royals were able to keep even this hit to a single and Salvador Perez came very close to picking Jason off of first base during Aviles at bat. [↩]
13 Comments
If only the Tribe had a better option at SS…
Kluber’s movement has been good thus far, i wonder how much it has to do with adjusting to the new catcher in calling games. This probably cannot be understated as to how we are doing this season.
Help us Francisco, you’re our only hope..
http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkot6w6QHJ1qcrzkko1_500.gif
It’s a LONG season.
And getting longer every day.
Yeah, they keep making things harder on themselves. At 6-12, they need to go 84-60 now to get to 90 wins, which should be the minimum target to make sure they get a WC spot. That is a .583 win%, which is difficult to achieve though not impossible.
Also, the Indians currently have the worst record in the AL. I didn’t have the heart to type that above.
april baseball matters
Klubot is broken or maybe just missing his brain (Gomes).
Klubot is fine, it’s the rest of the team.
BABIP fifty points higher than last year (thanks, defense).
Run support of two runs a game (thanks, offense).
Fangraphs had the odds of us making the playoffs at about 55% at the beginning of the year. We are now down to under 30%.
His team isn’t helping but he’s not the same either. He misses his Yanimal!
I know you disdain advanced stats, but he’s mostly in line with what he did last year. But yeah, sure, we all miss Yanimal.
Not disdain but they can distort things when overused. I don’t know on Kluber.
http://img.pandawhale.com/58669-so-youre-telling-me-theres-a-c-Sm9B.gif