The Indians try to avoid a sweep by the Giants; the last time the team visited San Francisco in 2011, they were swept.  They turn to Danny Salazar to stop the bleeding, and I don’t have a lot of confidence in his ability to do so.  He gave a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde performance his last time out, but by the time he was pulled there was more bad than good.  Plus there’s the fact that outside of the home opener, Salazar has yet to last past the fourth or fifth inning.  This taxes the bullpen, and leaves an anemic offense struggling to make up the difference.

When I lived around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for six years, I one day struck up a conversation about baseball with my neighbor.  She was pretty knowledgeable, and toward the end of our talk she said something along the lines of “I love talking baseball.  My grandson plays.”  I fully expected her to say that he played for a local high school, maybe a local college.  When I asked where he played, she responded “Pittsburgh.  For the Pirates.”  Her grandson was Ryan Vogelsong, today’s starter for the Giants.  After his struggles with the Pirates, it looked like he may be out of the game.  He reinvented himself as a starter with the Giants and has seen a relative amount of success.  He’s had a rough start to the 2014 season; in fact, some of his recent games look almost like a Danny Salazar stat line.  On April 21 against the Rockies (in Colorado) he lasted just 1.1 innings and gave up 5 ER on 6 hits.  He had a decent start against the Dodgers on April 16 (1 ER on 4 hits in 6 IP), but other than that he’s given up four or more earned runs in each start.

The Indians need to kick a guy while he’s down today, and hope that they can score enough runs to give Salazar a cushion.   Hopefully a rather large cushion.  I keep thinking this could end up like a football score today, but because I keep thinking that, it will probably be like 2-1 or something.

Today’s lineups:

Indians:

Michael Bourn-CF

Nick Swisher-1B

Jason Kipnis-2B

Carlos Santana-3B

Michael Brantley-LF

Asdrubal Cabrera-SS

Yan Gomes-C

David Murphy-RF

Danny Salazar-RHP

 

Giants:

Angel Pagan-CF

Hunter Pence-RF

Brandon Belt-1B

Buster Posey-C

Michael Morse-LF

Pablo Sandoval-3B

Brandon Crawford-SS

Brandon Hicks-2B

Ryan Vogelsong-RHP

6 Comments

  • D.P. Roberts says:

    These last 2 games with the Giants have gone exactly as I predicted. One Indians pitcher gave up only one run over seven innings, and the other pitcher gave up 4 runs in a fifth inning implosion. I just had the pitchers backwards.

  • shaun says:

    santana is really killing us right now. if we switch him out, i don’t care that we might get every lefty reliever after the 7th inning against us…we need to do something. great start by salazar however! reassuring to see

  • Gvl Steve says:

    Santana is an embarrassment. What is he, 3 for his last 60? No pitch recognition skills at all. He swings at every pitch likes it is a fastball and tries to pull everything. This guy is the easiest hitter in the league to get out. Just put the entire infield on the right side and throw offspeed pitches on the outer half. He’ll roll over and pull them all right into the shift, and then Underwood will complain about his bad luck at not finding a hole. And Francona’s answer is to just keep trotting him out there every day in the #4 spot because if he does, somehow it will all miraculously get better. Until his approach changes, it won’t get better.

    • Cale says:

      I don’t think pitch recognition is the major problem. His OBP is still .313. And league average last year was .318. He has more walks than strikeouts. I agree the issue is that he’s trying to pull everything, which should be correctable, but for some reason, either they aren’t getting through to him or he’s not listening.

  • shaun says:

    this was a really bad loss…pit of your stomach type loss. i know its only april and the rest of the division isn’t exactly tearing it up either but cmon guys…

    • Ghost of Joel Skinner says:

      No – it’s not. The team is playing to the level of their talent – which is NONE.

      When the Cleveland Indians decide to get TALENT in their organization – they will win, not one minute before.