There’s certainly no denying the type of talent fire baller Danny Salazar has hidden in his golden right arm – mid- to upper 90s fastball, solid-average control, tons of strikeouts. And, yet, the results just haven’t been there this season – so far.

Tuesday night’s clunker is just the last example: 4.1 innings, seven hits, two walks, six strikeouts, five runs (four earned), and one homer served up to the struggling – understatement of the year – Mike Moustakas. All of which was wrapped up in the not-so-tidy 89 pitches.

The Moustakas three-run bomb came in the top of the fourth inning, with the Tribe leading 1-0.

Once again, Salazar tempted the Tribe faithful with his potential – he now has fanned 23 in 18.1 innings of work – only to fail to make it out of the fourth inning for the third consecutive game, though some questionable defense didn’t help.

Jarrod Dyson beat out a bunt single as both Salazar and Jason Kipnis failed to make it to the bag in time. And center fielder Michael Bourn came up empty on a play at the wall resulting in a double for Billy Butler.

Lefty reliever Josh Outman, who is quickly becoming one of the better moves of the offseason, tossed an inning-and-a-third of scoreless ball, dropping his ERA down to a tidy 1.17. And C.C. Lee and Bryan Shaw sandwiched solid outings around Scott Atchison’s first implosion of the year.

On offense, it was all about Big Game James Shields, who struck out the side in the both the fifth and sixth innings en route to eight punch outs on the night.

Bourn’s lumber is seemingly waking from its 2014 slumber; he went 2 for 5. Nick Swisher, Michael Brantley and Yan Gomes each chipped in two hits as well.

Tribe takes on Kansas City tonight, featuring team ace Justin Masterson against soft-tossing southpaw Jason Vargas. Game time is 7:05.

8 Comments

  • Swift says:

    “Rubber match”? I thought we had a game tonight and a game tomorrow afternoon.

  • Joseph Werner says:

    Good catch, Swift

  • Gvl Steve says:

    Something has got to be done about the starting rotation. The team can slough off April games publicly, but privately they know they are digging a hole that will not be as easy to get out of as last year. Trotting out two SPs who give you no chance to win is something rebuilding teams do, not contenders. Salazar and Carrasco need to be replaced by Bauer and Tomlin immediately before they kill the season. Salazar needs to work on his secondary pitches at Columbus. Carrasco needs to be a middle reliever. Isn’t it obvious? What the hell are they waiting for?

    • The Doctor says:

      this. as a cleveland fan, i hate (but can tolerate) all the things that make up the poor play on the field (awful hitting, inept fielding, atrocious starting pitching). that’s just baseball. poor play happens.

      what i CAN’T tolerate is the baffling bullheadedness by francona and the front office, who both refuse to address roster or lineup construction issues that could mitigate some of the hideous play we’ve seen so far:

      – running effectively the same batting lineup out there every day and expecting a new result is infuriating. the lineup is one of the few areas the manager truly has direct control over and he refuses to consider that maybe a lineup that’s consistently struggling to score 2-3 runs a game just might need to be tweaked. bourn and swisher are lighting it up at 1-2! keep them there! make sure santana’s batting cleanup so he can ground into more double plays! keep the only guys hitting mired in the 7-9 spots!

      – even casual cleveland fans have known for a least a year that carrasco is not a starter – but let’s keep him in the rotation, further exhasuting in the bullpen with every start!

      – the bizarre toleration of a “starter” who can’t successfully pitch through the the 5th inning and who even the quickest eye test would reveal as someone who has no pitches besides a fastball. again, let’s keep punishing that bullpen.

      – a bench that’s 50% comprised of absolute deadweight – elliot johnson and jason giambi – a guy who’s never hit, and a guy who can’t hit anymore (AND can’t play the field). johnson, whose biggest contribution this year has been a pathetic bunt attempt, is so bad that even crazy francona won’t risk playing him – so why on earth is he on the team? there is no way there aren’t two guys at AAA who’d be better than these two bums. but hey, at least “veteran presence” addresses the issue of bourn at the top of the lineup helplessly flailing at curves, or something.

      • Cale says:

        I don’t think 20 games is enough of a sample size to start overhauling the roster. We’ve seen enough of Carrasco, he needs to go, but to all of a sudden bring up 4 or 5 guys from AAA is a panic move, and it’s not time to panic yet.

        While I understand the argument of the batting order as well…it’s hard to hide 5 guys not hitting somewhere in the lineup. If the 7,8,9 guys are hitting and you move them to 3,4,5…doesn’t that effectively accomplish the same thing. You have 3 guys together in the order that are hitting and you put Santana, Bourn, Swisher at the bottom of the order to have 3 dead spots in the lineup that are together. It seems like that is just putting a band-aid over a wound that needs about 15 stitches.

    • Swift says:

      Yes. Maybe you don’t move both of them at once, but you can’t have two holes like that in your rotation, particularly when Masterdon has been pretty mediocre so far. My understanding is that Tomlin has been struggling a bit, so maybe you ship Salazar to Columbus to work on stuff and bring up Bauer (though that is a risk too – one nice start does not make a season).

      If you move Carrasco to the pen and bring up another starter, someone is going to have to get sent down – who do you send? Maybe CC Lee?

      • The Doctor says:

        i think it would pretty much have to be Lee, given how the rest of the roster is presently constructed.

  • Ghost of Joel Skinner says:

    Salazar will not have a career until he learns location and develops a 3rd pitch.