Browns land DeForest Buckner in first post-trade mock from Todd McShay
April 21, 2016What if a QB drops to the Browns at pick No. 8?
April 21, 2016The Cleveland Indians (6-6) continue to bide their time as they wade their way through April. The Tribe has yet to be more than a game above or below .500 in 2016 and have won just one series. The Indians missed out on an opportunity for their second series win when the team could not muster offense to support another quality start1 from Danny Salazar in a 2-1 loss to the Seattle Mariners (6-8).
The Tribe have held firmly in fourth place in the difficult AL Central division behind the trio of fast-starting Chicago White Sox (10-5), Kansas City Royals (9-5), and Detroit Tigers (8-5). Even the Minnesota Twins (4-11) have rebounded from a horrific nine-game losing streak that began their campaign to win four of their last six games. Treading water in the most difficult division in baseball is a dangerous proposition, but the Indians are still awaiting their best hitter — Michael Brantley — to return from the DL, which is nearly imminent.
Keys of the Game
Forget the second inning, Salazar is fire
Danny Salazar continues to be one of the best pitchers in MLB for 2016 with another great outing. While he does continue to rack up high pitch counts — 114 pitches in just seven innings on Wednesday — Salazar has been fantastic all season long. The Mariners are a good fastball hitting club and each of their three hits (and the batted ball resulting in a Francisco Lindor error) were off of Salazar’s four-seam fastball. However, Salazar kept the Mariners off-balance with fastballs sitting at 96 miles per hour throughout the game and touching 98, while mixing in a good number of change ups and sliders 10 miles per hour slower. When Salazar is in command of these pitches as he was on Wednesday, hitters have to merely guess at what is coming next.
Most days, allowing two runs in seven innings of work while retiring 16 of the last 18 batters faced will be enough for a win. Some days, Salazar will just have to tip his cap to the opposing dugout and move on knowing he did his job. Wednesday was some days.
https://vine.co/v/iFUYMtwFWq5
About that second inning
Francisco Lindor picked up an error in the first inning though Salazar covered up the issue by striking out Robinson Cano and Kyle Seager. Salazar ran into a bit more trouble in the second inning when Adam Lind led off with a single and Salazar could not get the third strike call on a full count to Chris Ianetti.2 However, it appeared as though Salazar would navigate the inning again when he dispatched the next two M`s easily.
Unfortunately, he did not make Norichika Aoki guess what his next pitch would be as he challenged him with four straight four-seamers. Yan Gomes might as well of yelled “Give ’em the heater, Danny!” between pitches. Still, when Salazar is touching 98 and painting the edges, he still has the odds in his favor against Aoki. But, when it dips down to 95 and finds the belt-high middle-of-the-plate, well most MLB hitters welcome that pitch. Aoki drilled it down the first base line faster than Mike Napoli could react to it as it found it’s way to the right field corner.
Now, Lonnie Chisenhall was out there roaming right field for the first time this season. Last year, Chisenhall found a refreshed lease on his MLB time by developing into a dominant defender who was capable of diving catches and amazing outfield assists. Visions of Chisenhall throwing out a runner at the plate in his first game back though were quickly dashed as he failed to get his glove to the ground as the ball scooted off the wall and past him allowing two runs to score. The only two runs the Mariners would need.
Hey guys, the Cavs game is starting soon
Fans of MLB’s pace of play initiatives would have loved this game. Both teams seemed motivated to allow the 9890 fans in attendance time to get over to the Cleveland Cavaliers Game 2 against the Detroit Pistons across the Gateway plaza that began play two hours after first pitch. The tidy two hours and forty-eight minute game meant that fans with tickets to both games would have only missed part of the first half and could have seen the Cavs break open a big lead in the second half.
Salazar and the Indians defense (remember that Lindor error? well, he decided to make up for it later) helped contribute to the Mariners going quickly into the night.
https://vine.co/v/iFU3vbzVqFi
Certainly, the Indians being limited to just four hits and one walk helped contribute to the quick game. But, with Tajuan Walker in complete control, the Indians barely threatened. When Carlos Santana doubled in the second with one out, Gomes and Chisenhall quickly ended the inning. When, Juan Uribe doubled to led off the third inning, Tyler Naquin tapped the ball back to Walker who caught Uribe in a run down. Thankfully, an error by Lind allowed the Jason Kipnis to help the Tribe avoid the shutout by hitting a sacrifice fly to score Naquin.
After Walker was chased from the game (6IP, 110 pitches, six stirkeouts), Terry Francona was not going to allow the Indians to be hurt by Uribe getting caught in a run down again. So, after Uribe walked, in came Rajai Davis to run for him. Well, Davis must have still been napping from his time on the bench because he didn’t even react to a pick-off until Lind was chasing him down in yet another run down out for the Indians.
https://vine.co/v/iFP1i6mrPaA
The Wily Det
Ross Detwiler has had a tough go thus far for the Indians. But, on Wednesday, he did his job retiring Franklin Guiterrez and Robinson Cano in the eighth. Jeff “Diversity” Manship will get most of the bullpen praise (deservedly so as he now has a 0.83 ERA in the past 43.1 IP for the Cleveland Indians), but the Wily Det also deserves a hat tip as if the Indians are going to continue to hold only one left-handed reliever, then he better be able to get batters out.
The Numbers
There are some good things and some bad things that came out of this game, here they are in numerical format
Shifting gears and defenses
Mike Napoli’s 0-for-4 game with two strikeouts extended his mini-slump to 1-for-11 over his past three games. One obvious trend has been his inability to utilize the entire field. The Mariners are one of the many MLB teams not shy to employ a shift and Napoli continues to pull the ball anyway as evidenced from the above spray chart. It is a difficult task for a MLB hitter to change the approach that got him to MLB in the first place, but Napoli must find a way to keep the defense honest.
Whiffing on Salazar
As mentioned, Salazar has been employing his four-seam fastball and a mix of his two-seam sinker and split. Well, he is getting around his career norm for batters swinging and missing at those low splits and sinkers, but hitters simply have not been able to catch up to his letter-high four-seam in 2016. It is early, but having such a dominant put-out pitch is a promising sign his early returns are real.
Here is his career chart:
- And, technically, a Quality Start if you care about that made up statistic, which requires at least six innings pitched with three or less runs allowed. [↩]
- No idea how Ianetti laid off the pitch on a 3-2 count as it was letter high and right over the middle of the plate. Hard to argue too much though as Pitch F/X showed it was barely a strike. [↩]
7 Comments
Stop effing bunting.
I think with the bunting, they’re just trying to make sure they at least make contact with the baseball…which is going to eventually lead to them taking swings, and then later possibly hitting the ball. They’re working up to having an offense someday.
But hey, the good news is that they scored a run…which is perhaps better than you and I could do.
since bunting messes up their Exit Velocity averages, hopefully some players will see this as a source of ego and eschew them.
Ty Burkleo was confused. He’s been instructing hitters to lower their EVA.
No bunts, no TOOTBLANS = seven runs.
Carlos Santana is the worst player thiis team has ever seen. Cant play defense so we DH him and…. turns out to be a DH who cant hit a goddamn thing.
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