Video: Danny Salazar credits grip change for recent success
August 24, 2015Snap Judgment: Xavier Cooper racking up sacks thanks to quick first step
August 24, 2015After a three-city, ten-game road trip, a fourth city and eleventh game might start to feel burdensome to a last place team. But the Cleveland Indians can’t come home, not until they make up that game against the Cubs that was postponed on June 15 due to a deluge in Chicago. The game may not mean much to the Indians, but the young, rebuilding Cubs look to be headed for the postseason. Another game? Sure, let’s play two, as the late Ernie Banks would have said.
The Cubs are a whopping 20 games over .500. They may not catch the Major League-leading St. Louis Cardinals (78-45) in the NL Central Division, but at 71-51, they have a six-game lead over their next closest rival, the San Francisco Giants, for the second Wild Card spot in the National League. The Pittsburgh Pirates hold the first Wild Card position in the NL.
For the Indians, yes, it’s always nice to beat the New York Yankees, especially in the Bronx, especially as it relates to a pennant race. And the Tribe did take three out of four in this series after taking two out of three against the Yanks in Cleveland earlier this month. That gave the Indians a victory in the season series, with five wins in seven games. But the Indians began this road trip losing two out of three to both the Twins and the Red Sox. They’re still in last place in the AL Central with the fourth worst record in the AL and a hopeless six games behind in the Wild Card race.
The remainder of this 2015 season for the Indians, however, is all about 2016 and just enjoying the game, one at a time.
At Wrigley Field on Monday at 2:05 p.m. ET, Corey Kluber (8-13, 3.52) will face Jon Lester (8-9, 3.58), a terrific matchup even if there’s not much on the line for the Tribe besides a spoiler role. For the kid in us fans, however, a postseason berth isn’t a prerequisite to enjoying a game of baseball.
Following the makeup game against the Cubs, the Indians return home for a five-game homestand, two against the Brewers and three against the Angels.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the scheduled pitchers for the Tribe’s final Interleague series of the season, are:
Josh Tomlin (1-1, 2.03, 13.1 IP) vs. RHP Wily Peralta (4-7, 4.48, 82.1 IP)
Carlos Carrasco (12-9, 3.53, 158 IP) vs. RHP Jimmy Nelson (10-9, 3.60, 155 IP)
Speaking of looking forward to 2016, here are some things to look forward to:
- The Tribe’s Big Four portion of their starting rotation may have slipped to 3.5 for awhile given the struggles of Trevor Bauer, but this is still a very young rotation; why wouldn’t we assume it is far from peaking? And whether or not it lasts, the return of Josh Tomlin as the Tribe’s fifth starter has been a terrific story. Overall, this is still a group of starters which offers reason for optimism for a few years to come.
- The Indians’ new left side of the infield, Giovanny Urshela and Francisco Lindor, makes for an interesting contrast (and discussion) for the coming offseason. There’s no question both of them are excellent defenders. Lindor, of course, is the happiest of stories this season. The 21-year-old’s batting average is up to .298 after having hit .352 since the All-Star break. Pencil his name in the lineup for the next several years.
- As for Urshela, age 23, there may come a time soon when he looks like he needs some developmental work back in Columbus AAA. But whether the Tribe feels it can afford to keep him at third base in the majors might very well depend on what the other bats in the lineup are doing. As a corner infielder, you’d rather hope for some power and run production, and maybe it will be there eventually with Urshela, but, as always, the questions are what’s the alternative and how’s everyone else doing?
- Which brings us to Lonnie Chisenhall, who alternates between looking like he’s finished and looking like he could lead the league in hitting. Look at the striking contrast: As the Indians’ third baseman prior to the All-Star break, Chisenhall hit .209, earning him a ride down I-71 to Columbus on June 8. Less than two months later, on July 30, Chisenhall returned to the Tribe as a right-fielder and since then has hit a staggering .397 with an OBP of .453, SLG of .569 and an OPS of 1.022. Third baseman or right fielder? Mr. Enigma? Or perhaps Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Speaking of watching baseball, are you among those who pay for cable TV and internet service in the vicinity of, say, $150-200 per month only to find there’s not much you watch? It doesn’t take much scratching below the surface to hear the grumblings of consumers who are paying more and more for cable TV and getting less and less. “150 channels … and there’s nothing on,” is the kind of complaint that goes back even further than the late comedian, George Carlin.
Cable TV providers are finally seeing the writing on the wall as they watch more and more customers dropping pricey cable entirely and opting for internet streaming as their go-to method of TV viewing. Major League Baseball, of course, ever on the prowl for new ways to alienate its own fan base, began offering mlb.tv as a subscription service means of accessing ballgames through the internet.
MLB has been providing streaming video since 2002 but (and here’s the conspiratorial part) MLB has entered into contracts with Fox and ESPN that require MLB to black out games that fall within the theoretical home television territory for each team — whether or not the games are televised in that territory. So in those cases where the televised games are carried only by cable providers, live streaming is not an option. Buy the hefty cable TV package or don’t watch the local team’s games live. Games that are blacked out are made available as an archived game approximately 90 minutes after the game ends.
MLB is evidently aware they are losing young fans with their counter-productive blackout agreements and are considering an experimental reduction of such blackouts for next season. But they’ve said that before and, in the meantime, the contractual arrangements between MLB and Fox and ESPN have the smell of stifling competition. At root, cable TV’s all-or-nothing product lines (the refusal to sell programming on an à la carte basis) is already trending downward and MLB looks to have jumped onto a wagon whose wheels are coming off.
On April 6, 1973, Ron Blomberg of the New York Yankees faced Luis Tiant of the Boston Red Sox. He drew a walk. That was the first at-bat for a designated hitter in Major League Baseball. To date, the AL still uses the DH and the NL prohibits it. If MLB hasn’t been able to fix the incoherency of DH/no DH in 42 years, why should we believe they can see the writing on the wall regarding its handling of internet streaming?