Tribe Tidbits

April 28, 2014

tribetidbigs smallerfeather2Corey Kluber was lights out last Thursday afternoon against the Royals. He become just the fourth Indians pitcher since 1970 to toss a complete game with zero earned runs, 10 strikeouts and zero walks. He joined Orel Hershiser (1995 vs Tigers), Bert Blyleven (1985 vs Brewers) and Len Barker (1981 perfect game vs Blue Jays).

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Danny Salazar turned in his best performance of the season on Sunday afternoon, but the offense failed to get the job done. As a result, Salazar remains winless in nine career starts on the road. In the last 100 years, Charles Nagy and Jeff Mutis are the only Indians starting pitchers to begin their career with a longer road winless streak. Amazingly, Nagy’s and Mutis’ streaks briefly overlapped in the early 1990s.

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Before imploding in the 9th inning on Sunday, Cody Allen had not allowed a run in 12 appearances this season. It was the 5th longest such streak to open a season in franchise history. The record belongs to Ricardo Rincon, who made 17 straight appearances without allowing a run to start the 1999 season, although Rincon’s streak deserves an asterisk as he tossed just 10 1/3 innings during the streak due to his role as a lefty specialist.

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Carlos Carrasco continues to struggle and is close to establishing himself as one of the worst pitchers in franchise history. He’s one of just 154 pitchers in franchise history who have thrown at least 250 innings, and only Jaret Wright and Earl Whitehill have a worse career ERA with the Tribe. And if you rank those same pitchers based on ERA+ (which neutralizes ERA to account for league averages), Carrasco narrowly edges out Whitehill and David Huff for the title of worst pitcher in franchise history.

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Carlos Santana‘s April hasn’t been as awful as some fans would have you believe, primarily due to the fact the he’s walking at an impressive rate. But it’s tough to ignore that ugly batting average. In the last 100 years, only Aaron Boone (.123 in 2005) and Graig Nettles (.123 in 1971) posted a worse batting average prior to May 1 than Santana’s current .128 mark (min. 75 plate appearances).


1 Comment

  • Sean Porter says:

    Santana has a .496 OPS, as the cleanup hitter. He has been, as Charles Barkley would eloquently say, “torrible”. There aren’t enough base on balls in the world to “polish the proverbial turd” that is Santana’s .496 OPS after his first 100 or so plate appearances of ’14.

    In 113+ seasons, the Cleveland franchise has had only 154 pitchers total at least 250 innings with the team? Man, you could definitely win a bar bet or ten with that, I would have assumed the number would have been way more.